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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL: 



A SERIES OF DISCOURSES 



ON THE TRUE COMPREHENSION OE THE CHURCH, 



AS EXHIBITED 



MAINLY IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 



SUBORDINATELY IX THE STANDARDS OF THE PROTESTANT 
EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 

TOH THOUGHTS ON CHURCH GOVERNMENT AND WORSHIP 

AND 

A VIEW OF THE CHURCH IN HEAVEN. 



BY THE REV. JOHN S. STONE, D. D. 



RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH, BROOKLYN. 






-| 



_^ 



NEW-YORK: 

HOUEL & MACOY, PRINTERS, 111 NASSAU STREET. 

1846. 







-ftVk&G 




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by 

JOHN S. STONE, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York. 







r*£7 



TO 



THE PARISHIONERS OP CHRIST CHURCH, 

BROOKLYN, 

Before whom the substance of the following little work was delivered in the form of a 
Series of Discourses, it is now, in a somewhat enlarged form, 

^fcost 3Xc»|iectfull2 DetiicatrtJ ; 

With fervent desires that, in connexion with their peculiar privileges as members of the 
Visible Church, they may attain to all the graces which can adorn, and to all the blessings 
which shall fellow, membership in that Spiritual Church, which is the true mystical Body 
of Christ, " the fulness of Him thatfilleth all in all ;" 

By their affectionate friend and Pastor, 

The Author. 
Brooklyn, October 1, 1846. 



J 



PREFACE. 



The form, in which this little work appears, is not such as it would 
have assumed had it been originally prepared with a view to its ap- 
pearance from the press. Each Discourse has, indeed, been more or 
less enlarged ; yet, the recasting of the whole into the form of a regu- 
lar treatise, retaining none of the peculiarities of Pulpit address, would 
have been a labor incompatible with the concurrent discharge of parish 
duties. So far, however, as a passing change of phraseology could go, 
those peculiarities have been laid aside; and the work may therefore 
be considered as blending, with some of the proprieties of the Pulpit, 
others more befitting the Press: — whether to the advantage, or to the 
disadvantage of the book, its readers must judge. 

To those, who have opportunity for the comparison, it will be seen, 
that, in several points, both in the views advanced and in the authorities 
cited, there is a coincidence of thought and of reference with the Ser- 
mon of Bishop Mcllvaine on " the Holy Catholic Church." Indeed, it 
would be wrong to suffer these pages to go forth without carrying a 
distinct acknowledgment as well of the author's great indebtedness to 
the contents, as of his cordial assent to the views, of that very able and 
eloquent Discourse and its truly valuable Appendix. In the Church 
Theory advanced, there is no difference between that Sermon and the 
present work. The main difference between the two lies in the less 
extensive citation of other writers, in the wider and more formal range 
of Scriptural authorities and of Liturgical illustrations, and in the in- 
troduction of a greater number of topics, which have been attempted 
in the ensuing pages. 

In his more special appeal to Scripture, the author has been influ- 






b PREFACE. 

enced by an increasingly painful conviction, that, unless something, in 
the Providence of God, arrest the Theologic tendency of the age, the 
Protestant Church will ultimately reach a state, in which the argu- 
ment, in the style of the first Christian writers and apologists, from the 
sole, all-sufficient authority of the Word of God, will fall — a virtually 
dead weight — on the minds of a majority both of Clergy and of Laity. 
What little he can do to lift into that peerless honor, which is its 
heaven-born right, The Holy Bible, as the only infallible standard 
and rule of faith, he is most anxious to contribute. To the inspired 
Word, nothing can give either a meaning or a certainty, which lies not 
in its own sense: and from it nothing but Inspiration can develope a 
meaning or a certainty, which the human mind, as addressed in that 
Word, and as guided by the ordinary teachings of the Holy Spirit and 
by other accessible lights, is unable to discover. The latter part of this 
remark applies to doctrines, not to facts. Testimony to facts, and de- 
termination of doctrines are very different things. So far as testimony 
may be considered necessary to such facts, as the application of Bap- 
tism to Infants, the change of the Day of Rest, the origin of Episco- 
pacy with the Apostles, and even the prevalence of the doctrine of the 
Trinity, or of any other doctrine, as a matter of History, we may re- 
ceive that testimony if good and sufficient in kind and amount, — just as 
we receive any other good and sufficient human testimony ; regarding 
it as adequate to the reasonable proof of any fact, possible under the 
government of God. But, we cannot receive any exterior documents, 
or authority, as necessary and sufficient to determine, with infallible cer- 
tainty, what are the otherwise undiscoverable doctrines of Christianity, 
without thereby elevating those documents and that authority to a cer- 
tainty and a value above those of the Sacred Records themselves. If, 
in matters of doctrinal truth, the Bible — under the ordinary teachings 
of the Holy Spirit, and amid the lights, with which a Divine Provi- 
dence has surrounded it, — cannot disclose its own sense to that mind of 
man which it addresses, then nothing, lower than a new Revelation, 
can be made, with, certainty, to disclose that sense. Such new and 
clearer Revelation, were it given, could not be safely received unless 
accredited by miracles : and such a Revelation, so accredited, would 
rise at once to a certainty of authority and an eminence of value, above 
those of the ancient Bible itself. Hence the peril of receiving Tradi- 
tion, in any form, as a necessary and infallible interpreter of the doc- 
trinal sense of the Bible. To be of any higher authority than that of 
ordinary human testimony, or of any other value to interpretation than 
that of ordinary human helps, under the teaching of the Spirit, Tradi- 
tion must necessarily take rank with Revelation ; and when used to fix 



PREFACE. 7 

on the doctrinal sense of the Bible an infallible interpretation not 
otherwise discoverable, must necessarily take rank above the Bible. 
And yet, the Tradition, of which so much is made, has none of the 
accrediting miracles of a Revelation. The gravest suspicion may well 
be considered as resting on all pretensions to miracles subsequent to 
the Apostolic age. 

The fact, that Mr. Newman's "Essay on the development of 
Christian Doctrine " was written after he became, though before he 
avowed himself, a Romanist, destroys not its force as a true exponent 
of the tendency of the Tractarian doctrine on the subject of Tradition. 
The starling point of that doctrine cannot be distinctly and intelligent- 
ly assumed, and the line of that doctrine honestly and logically follow- 
ed, without reaching an elevation of authority and of value not only 
with but above the Word of God. Whether or not the advocates of 
that doctrine ever go, with Mr. Newman, to the length of receiving the 
peculiar doctrines of the Church of Rome, while admitting that those 
doctrines find no support, or none but the most dreamy, in the Bible ; 
and that many of the peculiarities of that Church have been developed 
in a way, of which the Ancient Heresies were but the premature, and 
therefore abortive, anticipations ; — whether or not they ever reach this 
extreme of bold but desperate honesty, — they, at least, cannot logically 
stop, till, like the Pharisees of old, they have, however unintentionally, 
yet virtually, " made the Word of God of none effect by their Tradi- 
tion." 

For, or against the Tractarian doctrine of Tradition ? — this is the 
very heart of the contest, on the decision of which hangs, for us, the 
question, Papal, or Protestant? — whether this question respect the 
movement of the individual, or that of the Church. If either the indi- 
vidual or the Church declare for that doctrine, — adhesion to Rome is 
the only result, which lies in a right line before the mover. The indi- 
vidual may die before that result is openly reached : or various strong 
influences may hold him back, or turn him aside, from the advances of 
rectilinear sympathy and logic : but nothing else can keep him frcm 
reaching and entering the gates, which open into the enclosure both of 
Romish Theology and of Romish Rites. If Protestants cannot be 
convinced of this by arguments, there is, at least, seme prospect, that 
they may be convinced of it by facts. 

As to the Theory of the Church, advanced in the ensuing pages, — 
the fact that this Theory is identical with that, embraced and defended 
by the leading writers of the English Church in the Sixteenth and Sev- 
enteenth Centuries, is admitted, — indeed, it cannot be denied, — by the ad- 
vocates of the Tractarian scheme. The testimony of those writers is too 



8 PREFACE. 

explicit and too harmonious to be disputed, or set aside. The only way? 
in which it can be met, is that, recently adopted in one of our Church 
periodicals, which consists in ascribing that testimony to undue sympa- 
thy with the Continental Reformed bodies, and to ignorance of the 
value of certain Patristic testimony, the credit of which, it is said, has 
been since established. The plea, in substance, is, that the English 
and Continental Reformers were fellow-sufferers in the persecutions, 
which Rome waged against her reforming opponents. It is not, there- 
fore, a matter for wonder if, in their strong fellowship of feeling for 
each other, and of dislike for the common persecutor, the English wri- 
ters were led too far in admitting the claims of the non-Episcopal Re- 
formed bodies of the Continent to the character of Churches, or parts 
of the one true Church of Christ. Besides, at the time of the Reforma- 
tion, and in the Seventeenth Century, the Epistles of Ignatius were not 
free from a suspicion of their authenticity. This suspicion has since been 
removed, and those Epistles are now available to the Episcopal argu- 
ment in all the explicitness and strength of their testimony. Had the 
Ignatian Epistles been in credit then as they are now, the English Re- 
formers and their successors would not have admitted, as they did, the 
Church character of the Continental Reformed Christians. 

As to the former part of this plea, — if sympathy under common 
persecutions can make Protestants recognize each other as fellow mem- 
bers of Christ, and Protestant Communions acknowledge each other's 
claims to at least the substance of Church character, — there would be 
one blessing, if no more, in making such persecutions perpetual. That 
the English sympathised tenderly with the Continental Reformed 
Christians in their trials, there can be no doubt: but that their sympa- 
thy blinded their judgments, or made them indifferent to the sad loss of 
the Episcopacy among their companions in suffering ; this is a very slen- 
der pretence, opposed by abundant testimony to the contrary. The lan- 
guage of Bishop Hall did not express his own sentiments alone, when 
he thus wrote, concerning Churches, which he called England's " dear- 
est sisters abroad." 

" Oh ! how oft, and with what deep sighs, hath this most flourishing 
and happy Church of England wished that she might, with some of her 
own blood, have purchased unto her dearest sisters abroad, the retention 
of this most ancient and every way best of governments;" i. e. the re- 
tention of government by the Episcopacy. 

" It is not the variety of by-opinions that can exclude them from 
having their part in the One Catholic Church, and their just claim to 
the Communion of Saints. While they hold the solid and precious 
foundation, it is not the hay or stubble, which they lay upon it, that 



PREFACE. 9 

can set them off from God and His Church. But in the mean time, 
it must be granted, that they have much to answer for to the God of 
Peace and Unity, who are so much addicted to their own conceits, and 
so indulgent to iheir own interest, as to raise and maintain new doc- 
trines, and to set up new sects in the Church of Christ" (not out of 
that Church) « varying from the common and received truths ; labor- 
ing to draw disciples after them, to the great distraction of souls and 
scandal of Christianity." 

No: the English Reformers and their successors were neither blind 
nor indifferent, they were keenly awake and alive, to the value and 
the obligation of Episcopacy : and all their sympathy with their suf- 
fering brethren of the Continent could not have extorted from them 
an acknowledgment of Church character without Episcopacy, had 
they not, as sound students of the Bible, been convinced that Episco- 
pacy, however valuable and obligatory, is not in such sense essential 
to the being of the Church that, without it, the Church cannot exist. 

As to the latter part of the plea ; — it is true that the Ignatian Epis- 
tles are now admitted to be authentic ; but it is not universally con- 
ceded that they are free from interpolations. One of the profound 
Orientalists of England, Mr. Cureton, has recently published, and, by per- 
mission, dedicated to the Primate of the English Church, an inter- 
pretation of the Syriac version of three of those Epistles, which, as 
there is said to be little reason for considering them abridgments, 
would shew that the expurgated Greek copies, in ordinary use, — 
much as their former contents have been reduced, — still contain many 
interpolations. It is remarkable that, in this shorter Syriac version, 
almost all the strong passages on the side of Episcopacy are icanting 
Allowing, however, that the Greek copies in common use are genuine 
as well as authentic; or that Ignatius actually wrote all the strong 
passages ascribed to him, on the subject of Episcopacy ; — this makes 
him not a teacher of the Tractarian Theory of the Church. You search 
those Epistles in vain for the Tractarian Idea of Apostolical Succes- 
sion ; i.e. ; of ordination as a virtual sacrament, transmitting not 
merely office, but a certain mysterious and, as it were, miraculous 
sacerdotal power, on the possession of which, from the Apostles' 
hands through the line of Bishops alone, depend the validity and effi- 
cacy of the other sacraments and of all ministerial acts. Not one of 
the strong passages, referred to, represents ordination as the exclusive 
prerogative of Bishops : not one speaks of it as conveying the mvstcri- 
ous sacerdotal power, for which the Tractarian contends. Ignatius, on 
the supposition that he wrote those passages, was evidently pressing 
Episcopacy as the regularly derived government of the Church ; a 



10 PREFACE. 

government then universally received, but having no necessary affinity, 
with the idea of a sacerdotal power conveyed in ordination, without 
which there can be no valid or efficacious ministerial act. 

A single passage will illustrate the remark, that Ignatius looked on 
Episcopacy, as a Government, for the Church rather than as a channel 
of Ordination for the transmission of such sacerdotal power. Addressing 
the Magnesians, he says : " I exhort you that ye study to do all things in 
a divine concord ; Your Bishop presiding in the place of God, your 
Presbyters in the place of the Council of the Apostles ; and your Deacons 
most dear to me, being entrusted with a ministry of Jesus Christ." This 
Idea, — putting, for purposes of Goverment, or Presidency, the Bishop in 
the place of God, the Presbyters in that of the Apostles, and the Dea- 
cons as the servants, or ministers, of Jesus Christ, — occurs repeatedly in 
his Epistles; and shows how little Ignatius had to do with the Theory 
of Ordination, as transmitting sacerdotal power from the Apostles 
through Bishops alone. According to Ignatius, Presbyters, not 
Bishops, are successors to the Apostles. 

It is needless to say that the English Reformers and writers of the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were not unlearned in Patristics. 
Usher, at Oxford in 1644, as well as Vossius, at Amsterdam in 1646, 
was engaged most learnedly in the great work of expurgating these 
very Ignatian Epistles. The sacred scholars of England, in both cen- 
turies, studied the Fathers deeply; though they never exalted them to 
an equality with the Bible. The Bible, too, they studied profoundly : 
and, being thoroughly versed in both, and withal, skilled as few or 
none others have since been, in meeting all the turns, and foiling all 
the movements, of the Romish argument on the subject of the Church, 
they were led to the adoption of the only Church theory, which can 
stand this side of an admission of the entire claims of Rome. As 
Protestants, we must go back to the ground of the English Reformers, 
or we shall be either drawn or driven back to the ground of the Ro- 
mish decrees. 

This English Reformation-Theory of the Church, — giving Episco- 
pacy its due place of value and of obligation, yet leaving to all Chris- 
tians an open ground of common membership in the one Church of 
Christ ; a ground, on which they may all come together in the glorious 
work of ultimately melting all hearts into one feeling of love, and of unit- 
ing all mouths in one profession of faith ; has, — the writer believes, — the 
Bible for its base, and the Bosom of God for its home. It is, he is 
persuaded, the only window in the Roof of our Ark, through which 
light from heaven can come in upon the darkness of Christian divisions 
and confusions, and make manifest the secret of peace, love and con- 



PREFACE. 11 

cord among all who name themselves of Christ. Cheerfully, there- 
fore, and trustingly does he bid the ensuing little work forth, that it may 
be the instrument of doing whatever God may allot as his part in the 
blessed work of filling the world with the spiritual reign of its One 
Prince of Peace. 



Brooklyn, October 1, 1846. 



J 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

THE SPIRITUAL CHURCH CATHOLIC. 

DISCOURSE I. 

General Remarks on Eph. ii; 19 — 22, Subject proposed. Special interest 
of the subject at the present day. Romanist's definition of the Church Catholic. 
The Tractarian's definition. A third definition sought. God's design in the 
Bible, to save sinners. .Requisites to salvation. Union with Christ, individual 
and immediate. The aggregate of those thus united, il a peculiar people." 
Some of this peculiar people found among all Christian denominations. Case of 
such among non-Episcopalians, Reasons why they belong to the Church 
Catholic. Third definition of the Church Catholic deduced. Difference be 
tween this and former definitions. Close. Page 18 to 33 

DISCOURSE II. 

Third definition of the Church Catholic resumed. Scripture Testimony to 
this definition. I. Metaphors. 1. A Fold. John x; 16, examined. 2. A 
Family. Eph. iii; 15, explained in connexion with vs. 20, 21. 3. A Bride. 
Rev. xxi ; 9, examined in connexion with vs. 10, 11, 24, 27. 4. A Body. Rom. 
xii ; 4. 5. Eph. ii ; 16: and iv ; 12—16, examined. 5. A Temple. Eph. ii j 21, 
examined in connexion with the rest of the Chapter, and with i ; 23. Reason 
why the Church, in this sense, is addressed as imperfect. Use of argument from 
these Metaphors. Close. Page 35 to 4S 

DISCOURSE III. 

Scripture Testimony resumed, II. Literal Passages. 1. Meaning of 
Greek word, Ecclesia. 2. Matt, xvi ; 18, explained. 3. Acts ii ; 47, explain- 
ed. 4. Eph. i; 22, 23, explained. 5. Eph. iii; 10, 20, 21, explained. 6. Col. 
i; 18, 24. explained. 7. Eph. v ; 25—27, explained. 8. I Tim. iii; 16, explain- 
ed. 9. Heb. ii; 10— 12, explained. 10. Heb. xii ; 22— 24, explained. Mutual 
cupport oi the metaphors and the literal passages, which have been examined. 

Page 49 to 67 



14 CONTENTS. 

DISCOURSE IV. 
I. Objection to the theory. Rational and Scriptural reasons for distinguish- 
ing the Spiritual from the Visible Church Catholic. Comments on John x ; 
26 : Rom. ii ; 28, 29 : Rom. ix ; 6—8 : Gal. iii ; 7. Sense, in which the old 
writers call the true Church Invisible. II. Importance to Christian theology 
of the view, which has been taken; 1. To a right understanding of Church 
Unity ; 2. To a right application of Christ's promises ; 3. To a right view of the 
Indefectability of the Church. III. Testimony of our Standards to this 
view. Reason for citing Devotional rather than Dogmatical Standards. 
1. Collect for All Saints' Day. 2. Closing Prayer in Communion Service. 

3. Language in the Creed, the Litany, and the Te Deum. 4. Force of all these 
testimonies. Page 69 to 83 

DISCOURSE V. 

Testimony of our Standard Writers. Ages to which they belong. 
1. Cranmer 2. Ridley. 3. Hooker. 4. Perkins. 5. Hall. 6. Taylor. 
7. Usher. 8. Jackson. 9. Barrow. 10. Sanderson. Force of these testi- 
monies. Non-juring doctrines of the Seventeenth Century. True use of the 
witnesses cited. Close. Page 85 to 96 

PART II. 

THE VISIBLE CHURCH CATHOLIC. 

DISCOURSE VI. 

Recurrence to distinction between the Spiritual and the Visible Church. 
True comprehension of the Visible Church Catholic sought. Our view of the 
Spiritual governs our view of the Visible Church. Visible Church Catholic 
defined. 1. Distinction founded in Scripture. Spiritual Church described in 
the Bible as one, all holy, and all in Christ ; irrespective of times, places and cir- 
cumstances. Visible Church described as many, mixed, and affected by condi- 
tions of time, place and circumstance, 2. Visible Church, as a Kingdom, likened 
to a Net ; and to a Field. 3. The theory, which makes Episcopacy essential 
to the being of the Church, confiiets with the Scriptural account of the one 
Mediator. True comprehension of Visible Church more fully stated. No 
part of the Visible Church may rightly call itself The Catholic Church. Doc- 
trine of our XlXth Article. Our Church does not make Episcopacy essential 
to the being of the Church. Page 99 to 111 

DISCOURSE VII. 

Doctrine of Visible Church resumed. I. Testimony of our Standards. 
1. Renewed reference to XlXth Article. 2. "Prayer for the whole state 
of Christ's Church Militant." 3. Prayer at the Institution of Ministers. 

4. " Prayer for all conditions of men." 5. Language of American " Preface to 
Book of Common Prayer." Sum of Testimony. II. Testimony of our Stand- 
ard Writers. 1. Jackson. 2. Sanderson. 3. Cosin. 4, Hooker. 5. Hall. 
6. Taylor. Value of their testimonies. Importance of this discussion concern- 
ing the Visible Church. Close Page 113 to 124 



CONTENTS. 15 

DISCOURSE VIII. 
Requisites to the well-being of the Visible Church. Its ministry. The 
Church not organised in the ministry, but the ministry set in the Church. The 
ministry essential — not to the being, but — to the well-being, of the Church. The 
primitive ministry, Episcopal. Comment on Preface to Ordinal. Difference 
between the fact, and the necessity of Episcopacy to the being of the Church. 
Reasons for retaining Episcopacy. Page 125 to 136 

DISCOURSE IX. 
Well-being of the Visible Church, resumed. Schism. Opposed to that well- 
being. Schism defined. It separates not from the Church. Evils of Schism. 
Cure of Schism. No indifference to distinctive principles recommended. The 
cure of Schism practicable. - - • - - • Page 137 to 148 

DISCOURSE X. 
Well-being of the Visible Church further considered. Unity. An attribute of 
the Spiritual Church. An attribute of the Visible Church. I. In the Visi- 
ble Church Unity consists, 1. Not in subjection to one Temporal Head. 2. Not 
in subjection to one constitution of ecclesiastical government and law. 3. Not in 
subordination to one form of the ministry. II. But, in professed subjection to 
Christ, the one Divine Head of the Church. Visible Unity consists in -pro- 
fessing what constitutes True Unity. Question of returning to the Unity of 
the Visible Church, considered. Extent of the obligation to an Apostolic minis- 
try. Duty and privilege of Protestant Christians. The Church has no surplus, 
or common store of merits to save the individual. Reference personal to the 
author. Close. Page 149 to 161 

P A R T 1 1 1. 

VIEWS OF GOVERNMENT AND WORSHIP. 

DISCOURSE XL 

Government of the Church. General remarks on Heb. xiii; 17. Subject 
stated. Cleared of things extraneous. A pure, or simple Episcopacy proposed. 
Advantages of such Episcopacy in government. I. As a Discipline of Order. 
II. As a Discipline of Teaching. I. As a Discipline of Order, Episcopacy is 
centralizing. A true mean between Papal usurpations, and Popular excesses. 
The Papacy, not Episcopacy developed. Corruption of Episcopacy, whence ? 
Springs of Popery. Position of simple Episcopacy. II. As a Discipline of 
Teaching, Episcopacy has peculiar advantages over Parity. Position of a 
Teaching Bishop. Objection to this view considered. Primitive Model-Bishop. 
False idea of Episcopal dignity. Summary and conclusion. - Page 165 to 183 

DISCOURSE XII. 

Worship of the Church. General remarks on John iv; 23. Worship in 

Spirit and in Truth. No form of Worship, a mark of comprehension to the 

Church. Liturgical Worship may be in Spirit and in Truth. Comparison of 

forms. State of the Church. True attitude of the Devotional mind. Influ- 






16 CONTENTS. 

ence of Extemporaneous worship thereon, during tendency to theological" 
change. Process described. Result of that process. Influence of Liturgical wor- 
ship during the same tendency to change. Requisites to a defensible Liturgy. 
Characteristics of our Liturgy. Its influence exhibited. Conservative against the 
Rationalistic tendency. Against extreme Ritual tendency. General influence on 
the whole Ecclesiastical Body through long generations. Comparative influence 
of the two modes of worship on the indevout mind. General points of compari- 
son. The argument, to whom unconvincing: to whom convincing. Close. 

Page 185 to 204 

DISCOURSE XIII. 
The Church in Heaven. Its Bishop, members, and Sacraments. Character- 
istics. 1. Union, as superadded to Unity. 2. Purity, as distinguished from 
holiness. 3. Sanctity, as identical with sinlessness. 4. Illumination, as op- 
posed to Error, Ignorance, and mistake. 5. Separateness, as opposed to 
worldly comformity. 6. Social Fellowship. 7. Gloriousness. 8. Eternal 
Repose. A question to the thoughtless. A consideration for Christians. 
End. Page 205 to 215 



J 



PART I. 



THE SPIRITUAL CHURCH. 



DISCOURSE I. 



u Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens 
with the saints and of the household of God ; and are built upon the foundation 
of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone ; 
in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple 
in the Lord : in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God 
through the Spirit." — Ephksians ii ; 19-22. 



The phrase, " strangers and foreigners, " in this passage, 
refers to what the apostle had said of the Ephesian Christians 
in the twelfth verse of the chapter. Speaking of their former 
heathenish condition, he had said; "At that time ye were 
without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, 
and strangers from the covenants of promise ; having no hope, 
and without God in the world. " They had been strangers 
from the covenants of promise, and aliens, or foreigners, from 
the Commonwealth of Israel. But, now they were " strangers 
and foreigners no longer ; but fellow-citizens with the Saints, 
and of the Household of God." 

" The covenants of promise, " of which the Apostle speaks, 
were not different covenants, but successive publications of 
one and the same covenant ; God's covenant of grace with 
fallen man. This covenant was intimated to Adam ; renewed 
with Noah ; formally revealed to Abraham ; distinctly confirmed 
to Isaac and Jacob ; delivered under sign and seal,* to Moses ; 
committed to the Aaronic priesthood in their successions j f and 
finally ratified with the whole Israelitish people, as they were 
about to enter on the typic land of Canaan. % And these 

* Exod. xii ; xxxiv ; 27, 2b. f Num. xxv ; 12, 13. $ Deut. xxix j 12-15. 



20 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

successive publications are called, " the covenants of promise," 
because they all contain, express or implied, the one, great 
promise of a Savior. Other promises, of a temporal nature, 
were appended to the covenant ; but this was the one infinite 
blessing secured, under whatever form that covenant was 
published. To this Savior, the Seed of the Woman and the 
Seed of Abraham pointed $ and of His work, the Paschal Lamb 
and the Sacrifice of Atonement were most eminent types. 

From this covenant of promise Heathen nations had ever 
been strangers. The covenant was restricted to ancient Israel, 
not because to be an Israelite according to the flesh was 
necessarily to be a friend of God, and an heir of His promised 
salvation ; but because that people alone, as a nation, had been 
chosen to be the progenitors of the promised Savior, and the 
depository of the outward formalities and privileges of the 
Church. And the Heathen were left out of the covenant, not 
because the word, Heathen, signifies an enemy of God, an alien 
and a stranger from His favor, but because, as nations, they 
belonged to that old world of Idolatry, out of which the 
" peculiar people " had been chosen ; to that wicked world, 
which, by its sins, had forfeited all claim to the privileges of 
even an outward covenant with God. 

Thus, for four thousand years, stood the world of men. At 
length, however, the Jews, having become wicked and arrogant 
under their visible distinction as the " people of God," were 
about to lose the exclusive external advantages of the " covenant 
of promise : " and the Heathen, though still covered with all 
their ancient defilements, had yet passed through the period of 
exclusion from outward privileges, and were about to receive, 
in common with the Jews, the offer of the great, the anciently 
promised salvation. 

But, as yet, a strong barrier of separation stood between those 
two portions of the ancient world. This barrier had its visibility 
in the marks and rites, which had so long distinguished them, 
and become the badges of a deep and mutual hostility , and it 
was a barrier not to be removed, save by the death of Christ. 
At length, in the " fullness of time," " The Anointed " came : 
He came and died, as the promised sacrifice for sin: He 



GENERAL REMARKS. 21 

died ; and with him was slain that legal " enmity, " those 
ceremonial " commandments and ordinances," which had so 
long divided the world in relation to the Church of God. 
The Cross, when it fell, broke down " The middle wall of 
partition ;" and through the irreparable breach, the Church 
passed out, carrying " the covenants of promise," the offers of 
salvation, to all mankind. 

It is true, that when the Jews rejected and crucified their 
promised Messiah, they were cast off from being the people of 
God. But how 1 Not as individuals, to whom the possibility 
of salvation no longer remained ; but, as a nation to whom the 
outward privileges of the Church were no longer to be confined. 
Salvation itself was now offered without the shadow of even a 
visible distinction, to every member of the human family. The 
death of Christ sunk completely out of sight every ceremonial 
separation between Jew and Gentile. In the language of the 
Apostle ; it made " of twain one new man." It brought 
together in Christ believers from both the great ancient members 
of the world ; securing to the individuals of both a full and equal 
participation in the offers of eternal life through a Crucified 
Redeemer. Through Christ all may now a have access by one 
Spirit to the Father." Hence the language of the Apostle ; 
" Now therefore, ye," Ephesian Gentiles " are no more strangers 
and foreigners," no longer excluded by ceremonial separations 
from the privileges of the Church, but are permitted to become 
M fellow-citizens with the Saints," and to be " of the household 
of God : and are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and 
Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone ; in 
whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an 
holy temple in the Lord : in whom ye also are builded together 
for an habitation of God through the Spirit." 

These words contain a grand description of the Church 
Universal : and, as this, so far as the Christian world is 
concerned, has become, emphatically, the great subject of the 
age, I feel justified in bestowing such time and attention as I 
may upon what is so profoundly occupying the thoughts of 
almost every Christian of our day. The Church : what is it 1 
where is it 1 and how may I know that I belong to it 1 these 



23 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

are the questions, which the controversies of the times have 
revived with an interest, unfelt for hundreds of years past. 
After having for a long period, been put behind the main truths 
of Christianity, these questions have again been brought forward, 
placed in the very fore-ground of our view, and made to 
demand a distinct and full answer. Such an answer they must 
and will receive, probably from the present generation ; nor 
are they so unrelated to the Christian teacher's great themes, 
Christ and His Cross, that they may not properly be answered 
even in his ordinary instructions as a messenger of the glad 
tidings of salvation. The Church, indeed, is not Christ ; but 
it is Christ's Body. The Church cannot stand in Christ's stead 
as our Savior ; but it does exist in the world as His servant. 
The Church cannot make a gospel 5 but it does preach the 
gospel. The Church cannot give life through the Sacraments j 
but it does administer the Sacraments of Him, who, through 
Himself, giveth life. When, therefore, we speak of the Church, 
provided we speak right things, we do, in truth, teach Christ ; 
we teach that in which Christ is intimately concerned j that, 
which holds intimate relationship with Christ. 

In view, then, of the truths, that the questions before us 
demand an answer; and that a right answer is part of the 
message, which we bring from Christ, let us proceed to seek 
for some clear, and should God so favor us, some just conclusions 
on this great topic of the day. What is the Church, and who 
belong to it t The Church, in its comprehension, is the theme, 
on which we enter, 

1. To the strict Romanist, then, the Church, in its unbroken 
Catholicism, or Universality, comprehends that visible society 
only, which holds and submits to its one temporal, human head ; 
and which under this head, has communion in all the 
Sacraments of that Church. All other Christian bodies, for 
whatever reason they may have been cut off, and however they 
may be called Churches, do not, in his view, belong to the 
one, Universal Church of Christ. To him, the Greek, Armenian, 
Syrian, and Coptic ; the English and American Episcopal, 
with all other Protestant communities ; planted as these various 
bodies are, with a]l,their millions, from end to end of the earth. 



DEFINITIONS. 23 

though they may retain some portions of Christian truth, and 
though many of them as individuals, may, peradventure, be 
saved ; yet are not Churches ; nor do they belong to the one, 
Catholic Church of Christ in the world. They are but heretical 
or schismatic sects ; and have neither part nor lot in the true 
Church. This, according to his creed, embraces only Rome 
and her dependencies. 

2. Again : to those, who, though not Romanists are yet 
eager to eschew the name of Protestants, the Church in its real 
Catholicism, is somewhat more comprehensive. It embraces 
all those bodies, which retain an Episcopal ministry, and have 
a common union in Sacraments Episcopally administered. 
This includes within the Catholic pale the Romish, Greek, 
and other oriental Churches j together with the English and 
American Episcopal. All these, it is admitted exist as separate 
Ecclesiastical organizations. So long, however, as they do not 
hold free intercommunion, and acknowledge one visible unity, 
their separation, though it leaves them within the Catholic pale, 
is yet one of the sorest and most to be deprecated of evils ; and 
its removal is to be sought as one among the highest attainable 
blessings. But, at this point, the limit of Catholicism, with 
this class, is reached. According to the view, here taken, 
all Protestant bodies, not Episcopally constituted, however 
numerous, full of spiritual life, and active in spreading the 
knowledge of Christ and the blessings of Christianity to the 
ends of the earth, do not belong to the Church. They may 
hold Christian truth in great purity, and, as individuals, myriads 
of them may be saved; but they are not Churches, nor parts of 
the Church. They are but heretical, or schismatic sects ; and 
their existence as such) is an evil of the gravest, most afflictive 
magnitude. The Church's great labor should be to reabsorb 
them into herself, while, at the same time, she is seeking to 
recover her own lost visible unity. Submission to a Universal 
Episcopacy, claiming the supernaturally derived power of 
conveying the Holy Ghost, together with the real body and 
blood of Christ, in ordination and in sacraments, is, upon this 
theory, the indispensable requisite not only to the integrity 
and perfectness, but to the very existence of the Church. 



24 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

3. Having thus exhibited what we may regard as, on one 
side, the two leading ideas of the Church in its comprehension, 
I purpose now to direct attention, on the other, to a third ; that 
the reader may be able to judge for himself which is most in 
accordance with the word of God, and with our own Protestant 
Episcopal Standards. Instead, however, of directly presenting 
this idea, I prefer to approach it through some previous views, 
taken by the way from Scriptural positions. 

1. It will be admitted, then, that the object of God, in the 
revelation of His will and in the incarnation of His Son, is, to 
save men from sin, and to bring them to eternal life. This 
great work, so far as it is to be wrought in the sinner, requires 
a thorough reconciliation to his Heavenly Sovereign, on the 
simple terms of " repentance toward God, and faith toward our 
Lord Jesus Christ ;" * an individual and hearty concurrence in 
the Divine Counsel of Redemption. Every person, thus 
reconciled, is said to be "justified by faith," and to "have 
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 5 ' Every one, 
thus reconciled, is " renewed in the spirit of his mind," lives 
" a godly life," grows in holiness, and has, even on earth, the 
beginning of the true life eternal. This eternal life now 
"abideth in him ;" he has already entered on the foretaste of 
his salvation. Hence the words of Christ j " He that heareth 
my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting 
life, and shall not come into condemnation ; but, is passed," 
passed already, " from death unto life." f This assurance is 
tied to no observance of outward institutions. It brings to view 
nothing but the Savior and the sinner ; the Savior's word and 
the sinner's faith ; that true faith, which is always followed by 
repentance and holiness. It is essentially an inner transaction 
between Christ and the true believer. Wherever the Word 
goes and is received into the faith of the heart, there is the 
basis of the divine assurance, c< he is passed from death unto 
life." This is the reason, not merely why there shall be, but, 
why " there is, joy in the presence of the Angels of God over 
one sinner that repenteth." His repentance is the first step out 

* Acts xx j 21. | John v ; 24. 



REQUISITES TO SALVATION. 25 

of that faith, which taketh hold on eternal life. The Angels 
see in it another victory for Christ ; another soul already 
" passed from death unto life." The Scriptures are full of this 
peculiar teaching; the assurance of salvation to every one, 
whatever be his outward circumstances, that trulv believes in 
Christ. " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
saved." " Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to 
every one that believeth." " There is no difference," says the 
Apostle, " between the Jew and the Greek ;" the most and the 
least privileged ; " for the same Lord over all is rich unto all 
that call upon him. For, whosoever shall call on the name of 
the Lord shall be saved." Whosoever calleth, in that " faith, 
which cometh by hearing, as hearing cometh by the word of 
God," " shall be saved." Whosoever. It is impossible to find 
a man, with this faith, under such peculiar circumstances as to 
invalidate the truth of this assurance, " he shall be saved," 
The Eternal Father hath so bound himself to this, that He 
would not be "just" were he not also " the justifier of him that 
believeth in Jesus," whenever and wherever this believer may 
be found. Both " the law and the prophets," as well as the 
gospel, concur in the " witness," that " the righteousness of 
God, by faith of Jesus Christ, is unto all and upon all them 
that believe." As " all have sinned," and are alike in that 
article, so, among all who have this faith, " there is no 
difference :" nothing can make a difference in favor of one 
and against another, in whom this faith dwelleth. " Jesus 
said; I am the Bread of life : he that cometh to me," whoever 
he may be, and whatever his outward lot, " he that cometh to 
me shall never hunger ; and he that believeth on me shall 
never thirst." "I am the Resurrection and the Life : he that 
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and 
whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." " For 
God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life." * There, Christian reader, is the Gospel and 
nothing but the Gospel. We must convict the solemn Trinity 

* Acts xvi ; 31.— Rom. x j 4, 12, 13. — lii ; 21, 22, 26.— John vi j 36.— xi ; 25, 
26.— Ui; 16. 



26 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

of falsehood before we can take eternal life from him that trulv" 
believes in Jesus Christ. It matters not by what name he is 
called, or in what connection he is found ; if he have this faith, 
whole and uncorrupt, in his heart as well as in his head, he 
"hath eternal life," and no man can take from him that " gift 
of God." 

But, why does the Scripture make so much of this faith ? 
Because this alone constitutes the Christian character ] No. 
But because it cannot in that character be alone. It is, under 
the Spirit, the parent of all other holy graces. This truth, in 
former times, drew from Bishop Hall the cry ; " the grace 
of faith ! justly represented to us by St. Paul, above all other 
graces incident unto the soul, as that which, if not alone, chiefly, 
transacts all the main affairs tending to salvation. For faith is 
the quickening grace ; the directing grace ; the protecting 
grace; the establishing grace; the justifying grace; the 
sanctifying and purifying grace. Faith is the grace, which 
assents to, apprehends, applies, appropriates Christ ; and 
hereupon it is the uniting grace ; and (which comprehends 
all), the saving grace." 

In the texts, thus far cited, we see the simple, essential 
requisites to salvation under the gospel; those, without which 
no man, to whom the word of God comes, can be saved ; and 
with which any man may and will be saved. Let us now take 
one farther step. 

2. Every one, in whom the required faith is found, has a 
direct and personal union with Christ ; so that he draws his 
spiritual life, not by succession from another believer, but 
immediately from the Savior himself. Nothing, however thin, 
intervenes between the two. By faith the believer is " in 
Christ ;" and by the same faith Christ " dwells in the believer's 
heart." This mystic union between Christ and each individual 
Christian is as close and as perfect, as though Christ and each 
individual were the only ones in all the world concerned in that 
union. As a foundation, Christ is as broad as the realm of sin, 
and as long as the age of grace ; so that every true believer 
touches, immediately, and for himself, that, on which he is 
builded. In this peculiar union, there is, not a miraculous , 



UNION WITH CHRIST IMEMDIATE. 21 

impartation of the Divine substance, but, a real derivation of 
the Divine life : and faith is the grace, by which the heavenly 
derivation is realized. Faith brings the soul to the spring- 
head in Christ ; faith drinks of the living water, which He 
gives. M Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give 
him, shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him, 
shall be in him, a well of water, springing up into everlasting 
life." " I am the vine ; ye are the branches ; he that abideth 
in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit." 
u If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." "-That 
Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." " Ye are not 
in the flesh, but in the Spirit ; if so bet hat the Spirit of God 
dwell in you : but if ye have not the Spirit of Christ, ye are 
none of His." " Your life is hid with Christ in God." " He 
that," with an appropriating faith, " eateth my flesh and 
drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him." * These 
are some of the passages, in which this sacred union is indicated ; 
and they shew that, while Christ holds this union with all, who 
truly believe in Him, he still holds it with each, separately 
and severallv. Each single Christian holds this living; 
connexion and communion with the Savior, as immediately 
and as closely, and draws life therefrom as largely and as 
perfectingly, as though himself and the Savior were the only 
beings concerned in the divine affinity. 

I have thus shewn, from the inspired Word, what it is that 
essentially characterizes the true Christian, and what is the 
relation, which he sustains with Christ, his divine head. We 
are now prepared for a still further movement. 

3. There are, then, in the world, as there have been from 
the beginning, and will be to the end, a steadily growing, and 
at length a very great company of human beings, sustaining 
the character and the relation, which I have just explained ; 
the character of true believers in Christ, the relation of a holy, 
individual union with Christ. These, as represented in the 
Bible, and as found in fact, are an exceedingly " peculiar 
people." There are none like them in all the world. In 

* John iv ; 14.— xt j 5, — 2 Cor. v ; 17.— Ephu iii j 17.— Rom. viii ; 9.— Col. 
aii ; 3. — John vi ; 56, „ 



28 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

many outward respects, they seem like common men ; but, in 
the depths of their being, they are quite unlike all others. They 
are stamped with the lineaments and features of quite another 
nature. If what has been wrought within could be laid open 
to the eye of sense, they would instantly be known from other 
men, all over the earth, and throughout all heaven. Gathered 
from whatever nation or kindred, and marked by whatever 
peculiarities or inequalities, they would yet be found, in their 
main characteristics, alike ; shaped by the same divine hand, 
stamped with the same spiritual features, passing through the 
same general experience, belonging to the same great company, 
and tending to the same sublime destiny. 

Now, this exceedingly " peculiar people" are found, not 
exclusively within the lines of any one Christian community, 
but, in greater or less numbers, within the limits of all : some, 
doubtless, even among the most corrupt of those communities ; 
and myriads among those, which rise nearest to primitive purity. 
Here, however, comes in view a remarkable fact. A very 
considerable number of this "peculiar people" are found in 
Christian communities, which neither submit to one temporal 
human head, nor receive an Episcopal ministry and sacraments. 
They are known by various human names ; but, in character 
and relation, they belong to that same "peculiar people," who 
have been described. They have all the lineaments and 
features j all the views and experience of that people ; every 
thing, which can mark them as belonging to the same spiritual 
race. Of this, there can be no question. If the true though 
hidden characters and relations of the whole holy company 
were laid open, this portion of them would be seen, before 
earth and heaven, to be identical with all the rest. What, 
then, is the relation, which these acknowledged Christians, 
thus destitute of the Episcopacy, bear to the one, true Church 
of Christ 1 * 

This question is important. I have no undue sympathy with 
those, who refuse to receive an Episcopal ministry. Still, 

* It will be seen that I am speaking — not of non-Episcopal communities, in 
the mass, but — of those among them, who answer to the foregoing description 
of God's " peculiar people." 



CASE OF NON-EPISCOPAL CHRISTIANS. 29 

their existence in such considerable numbers, and with such 
undeniable evidence of identity with the " peculiar people," 
is a grave and weighty fact, of which we must, in some way, 
dispose. Again, therefore, I ask ; what is the relation, which 
they bear to the one, true Church of Christ % This question is 
important, chiefly from the consideration ; that if the Christians, 
now in view, belong to the one, true Church, then our proposed 
search for a third idea of this Church, different from either of 
the two, which have been propounded, is indispensably 
necessary. Do these Christians, then, belong to the one, true 
Church of Christ 1 The advocates of both those theories 
answer ; they do not. I am constrained to the opposite reply ; 
they do belong to this Church. My reason for saying this 
must, for the present, be briefly given. 

Either, then, they belong to this one, true Church, or they 
are saved without belonging to any Church. Now, whether 
God ever saves men, where Christ is unknown, or when it is 
impossible to confess Him before the world, it is not necessary 
here to inquire. This, however, may be safely said ; where 
the Gospel is preached ; where the Holy Spirit is sent forth to 
apply that Gospel ; where Christ is thus fully made known ; 
and where men have a fair opportunity to confess him before 
their fellow men j there God saves no man but in His one 
appointed way, on the terms of His one, unchangeable covenant 
of grace, and as a member of His one, true Church. Under 
the conditions here assigned, I hold the doctrine to be strictly 
true, that, " out of the Church there is no salvation." It is 
only when a w T rong idea of the Church is embraced, only when 
a particular ecclesiastical body arrogates to itself, exclusively, 
the style and prerogatives of the true Church of Christ, that the 
doctrine becomes not only false but impious. When the word, 
Church, is rightly understood, and is used within the conditions 
just named, the doctrine is both true and precious; that "out 
of the Church there is no salvation." But, the Christians, of 
whom we speak, obtain salvation j and they are saved within 
the specified conditions. They are saved by means of the 
Gospel, through the knowledge of Christ, by the renewing of 



30 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

the Holy Ghost, and with a confession of the truth, and of the 
true Savior before men. They are saved as all other Christians 
are saved. They, therefore, belong to the one true Church of 
Christ. 

If, by the opposite opinion, it be meant, that, though saved, 
yet they are not members of the Church in the sense of either 
of the two definitions, already given, this is but saying that 
they are neither Romanists nor Episcopalians. But, if it be 
meant that, though saved, yet they are not members of the 
Church in any sense, then it may be asked ; what essential 
necessity for a Church exists 1 If, from age to age, myriads 
are saved where the full light of Christ is shining, and where 
the full power of the Holy Spirit is sent forth, while yet they 
belong, in no sense, to the Church, then, the Church, instead 
of being exalted and shewn to be divinely necessary, is 
degraded, and shewn to be of comparatively little worth. Men 
may be saved without, as really as within, its enclosure ; 
without, as truly as with, its name. The Church, as to her 
specific difference, is brought down to the rank of a mere 
keeper of manuscripts, and regulator of forms. All higher 
attributes and privileges, all more spiritual functions and 
influences, it only shares in common with a body of Christians, 
who belong not to its communion. The moment we say that 
these higher attributes and privileges, these more spiritual 
functions and influences, whereby alone Christian men are saved, 
are not partially and accidentally, but exclusively and in the 
design of God, enjoyed by the Church (and this I hold to be 
the true doctrine), the moment we take this position, we compel 
ourselves to admit that this other body of Christians, who share 
these attributes and privileges, these functions and influences, 
and are saved thereby, belong to the Church. There is no way 
of evading this conclusion but by admitting that the Church 
merely shares the highest and richest means of salvation with 
a body, who do not belong to the Church. 

But, if these Christians belong to the Church of Christ, then, 
clearly, so far as its comprehension is concerned, neither of 
the definitions, which have been given, is right ; and we are 



FURTHER DEFINITION. 31 

compelled to seek a third idea of the one true Church. What, 
then, is this third, this more comprehensive idea of the Church 
of Christ ] 

The answer comes from what has already been said. Without 
denying, but rather cordially holding, that, in one important 
sense, the word, Church, may, with strict propriety, be applied 
to a particular ecclesiastical organization, and that it actually 
is so applied in the Bible, in history, and in common usage ; 
it is, nevertheless, plain, that what has, thus far, been said leads 
directly to this definition ; The Church, in its highest, largest, 
truest sense, is, that great spiritual company of true believers 
in Christ, who, in the main, hold His truth whole and uncorrupt, 
and who, by His sole divine agency and power, are saved from 
sin and everlasting death. In this, its highest, largest, truest 
sense, the Church is, precisely, the whole company of that very 
"peculiar people," whose character and relation to Christ I 
have already set forth. This great company exists both in 
heaven and upon earth ; and it is gathered and to be gathered 
from the present, from all past and from all coming ages. And 
this, with Bishop Taylor, I understand to be the sense of what 
we profess to believe in the Creed ; " the Holy Catholic Church, 
the Commnnion of Saints." The Body, thus named in the 
creed, is not merely in name, or by a fiction of language, or 
by charitable supposition, but, in reality, in the truth of words, 
and in the sight of God, a Holy Church. It is literally a 
4< Communion of Saints." It comprises all, of whatever age 
or country, of whatever name or connexion, who, in the main, 
hold the truth of Christ whole and uncorrupt, and are saved by 
Him from sin and eternal death. It is a " Communion of 
Saints ;" or, of those truly holy men, who have a common 
union with Christ in His truth, His life and His salvation. 
These alone are His Spiritual Body ; and He alone is their one 
Head. They alone are His true Temple ; and this Temple 
alone is filled, truly and always, with His divine and sanctifying 
presence. 

Nor is this Body, thus holy, merely called a Church ; as if, 
by a figure of rhetoric, it were honored with a name really 
belonging to something else, to which it is related ', but it is, 



32 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

by eminence, the Church ; in its best, its original sense, the 
Church of Christ 5 and, instead of receiving, it gives its name 
to whatever is analogically called a Church. Christ first 
constituted, and has ever since enlarged the Church, by 
gathering and " adding to it those who are saved." (rovs 
tfw£of/ivou£.) # The Savior and the saved are the first and funda- 
mental elements, as well as the last and finished development, 
of His Church. 

The difference between this idea of the Church, and both the 
previous definitions of it, which have been given, will be seen 
by observing, that the Church is not, in itself, an agent in saving 
men, but the great company of men saved, in spiritual unjon 
with Christ their Savior. The difference is essential. 

I say not that, in no sense, does the Church use means for 
saving men. As an organized Body, such means have been 
graciously entrusted to its use. This, however, does not make 
the Church, in itself, an agent in saving men, any more than 
medicine, put into the hands of a Physician, makes the 
Physician himself a medicine, or constitutes him the power, 
which gives that medicine its effect in healing the sick. To 
make the Word and sacraments to be " of the essence" of the 
Church, prepares the way for making the Church itself, in a 
sense co-ordinate with Christ, an agent in saving men 5 and 
may well account for the fact, that, in the teaching of some, 
the Church so nearly puts the Savior out of sight. What I 
mean, in the distinction taken, is, that the Church is not, in 
any sense, itself an agent in saving men. In its first and true 
idea, it is just the whole company of men saved, in spiritual 
union with Christ their Savior. Christ and the great company 
of those, who live in Him by faith, and in whom He lives 
through faith, this is the very essence of the Church j that, 
without which the true Church cannot exist ; that, with which 
it cannot but exist. The importance of keeping this idea 
distinctly in mind can hardly be overrated. 

Thus far I have merely been seeking a definition of the 
Church of Christ in its true comprehension. Hereafter, I hope 

* Acts ii j 47. 



DEFINITIONS DISTINGUISHED. 33 

to shew that this definition is consonant both with the Word of 
God and with our own Standards ; after which it is my purpose 
to direct attention to what has become the more ordinary 
acceptation of the word ; to the Church as a visible and 
organized body. 

I cannot close the present view without pressing a question, 
which grows out of all that I have now said. Do we, each for 
himself, belong to the true Church of Christ 1 This is not a 
question, touching mere outward relations. Our being 
members of a visible ecclesiastical organization, does, by no 
means, settle this question. Are we included among the 
"peculiar people," whom I have described % We must be, or 
we cannot belong to Christ and be saved by Him. Our souls 
must be in Him by faith ; and, by faith we must draw life 
directly from Him. If we are His in an external sense only, all 
the present names and badges and privileges of our Christian lot 
will be but so many aggravations of our guilt and wretchedness, 
when we come to stand before God. If we are Christians only 
in outward shew, all those names, badges and privileges, will 
then be but so many splendid patches upon the dark garment 
of our shame; enhancing, by the very strangeness of their 
contrast, the ignominy and the misery with which we shall be 
inwardly consumed. 

God give us, each and all, a discerning eye, that we may 
see our true condition now; so that, if we are not already "in 
Christ" by faith, and growing through Him in holiness, we 
may seize, before it be forever lost, our opportunity, for being 
11 found of Him in peace, without spot and blameless." 



J 



DISCOURSE II. 



" Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens 
with the Saints and of the household of God ; and are built upon the foundation 
of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone : 
in whom all the building, fitly framed together, grovveth unto an holy temple 
in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God 
through the Spirit." — Ephesians ii ; 19-22. 



These words, I have already remarked, contain a grand 
description of the Church Universal, the one true Church of 
God. They shew it to be, as represented in the language of 
the Creed, " The Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of 
Saints." This Church is the great company of those holy 
ones, who have a common union, by faith, with Christ, their 
sole Head ; who hold His Truth, in the main, whole and 
uncorrupt ; and who are saved, by His sole agency and power, 
from sin and everlasting death. 

This idea of the Church, so far as it was brought out at the 
close of my first discourse, was drawn from the language of 
the Bible, descriptive of the true Christian, and of his individual 
relation to Christ. 

But it will be asked, are there any passages in the Bible, 
which, while describing the great company of true believers, 
thus individually united to Christ, represent them as the 
Church 1 Are there any Scriptures, intentionally describing 
the Church itself, which contain the basis of the idea just 
presented % 

This question will lead me to an examination of two sets of 
passages ; the true sense of which, as I apprehend, will shew 



36 



THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 



that this idea is sustained by the teaching of the Inspired Word. 
One of these sets of passages presents the Church under certain 
metaphors ; the other presents it under its own proper name. 

I. First, then, passages which present the Church under 
certain metaphors. 

1. In the tenth Chapter of the Gospel by St. John, Christ 
presents His One True Church under the metaphor of a 
" Fold." The relation between Him and His people, in this 
figure, is, of course, that of the Shepherd and his Sheep. Some 
of the language, which He employs in carrying out the figure, 
is as follows : " He that entereth not by the door into the 
sheepfold, the same is a thief and a robber." " I am the door, 
by me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in 
and out and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to 
steal, and to kill, and to destroy ; I am come that they might 
have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am 
the good Shepherd ; the good Shepherd giveth His life for the 
Sheep." " And other sheep I have, which are not of this Fold ; 
them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and 
there shall be One Fold, and One Shepherd." " My sheep 
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me j and I 
give unto them eternal life j and they shall never perish, 
neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father, 
who gave them me, is greater than all, and no man is able to 
pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are 
One." 

Now, here, under this idea of a Fold, with a Shepherd and 
his sheep, we are evidently presented with the one, true and 
whole Church. Of whom, then, does it consist 1 Of none 
but the Shepherd and his sheep ; those, and those only, who 
" enter in by Christ, and are saved ;" who "hear His voice, and 
follow Him ;" to whom He "gives eternal life, and who shall 
never perish." The Fold, which encloses both the flock and 
its Shepherd, if explained separately, may be regarded as the 
securities and guaranties of that fixed and unchangeable 
Covenant of Grace, within which, the whole sacred company, 
in their spiritual union with Christ, are securely held. But, 



METAPHORS. THE CHURCH A FOLD; A FAMILY. 37 

if the whole figure be interpreted together, The Fold and 
those whom it Contains, it will then represent the one, true 
and whole Church of Christ ; both that part which had been 
saved before His advent, and that which was to be saved 
afterwards. " Other sheep," says Christ, " I have, which are 
not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear 
my voice ; and there shall be One Fold and One Shepherd. " 
That is, " my sheep among the Gentiles are not yet actually 
gathered in ; but they are mine, and gathered in they shall be. 
The Fold is one, and the Shepherd one ; and when the 
gathering is ended, eternity shall receive the whole to the 
fulness of my salvation.' In this place, the metaphoric term, 
Fold, clearly means, the one, whole enfolded flock, who are 
to be saved, from first to last, under the security of the eternal 
covenant of grace, and in union with Christ, their only and 
Divine Head. Here, then, is one scriptural view of the true 
and whole Catholic Church of Christ, in perfect coincidence 
with the idea which I have presented. 

2. Take another. In the third Chapter of his Epistle to the 
Ephesians, St. Paul presents the same blessed company under 
the metaphor of a " Family." " For this cause I bow my knees 
unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole 
Family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant 
you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened 
with might by His Spirit in the inner man ; that Christ may 
dwell in your hearts by faith ; that ye, being rooted and 
grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, 
what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height ; and to 
know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge ; that ye 
might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now, unto Him 
that is able to do exceeding abundantly, above all that we ask 
or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him 
be glory in the Church, by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, 
world without end." 

It needs no comment to convince us that, what is here 
termed "the whole family," which takes its name from Christ, 
which exists " in heaven and earth," in whose " hearts Christ 
dwelleth by faith," who are " all saints," and who are, sooner 



38 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

or later, to be " filled with all the fulness of God," means, as 
in the former case, simply the one, true and " holy Catholic 
Church," that one spiritual family of the saved, whose only 
Head is Christ, and in whose very hearts Christ dwelleth. Or, 
if any should deem such comment needful on the metaphor 
before us, we have it at the close of this very passage, in the 
words of Inspiration itself, where this very " Family in heaven 
and earth" is called neither more, nor less, than " the Church," 
that " Church in which God is glorified by Christ Jesus, 
throughout all ages;" that is, from the first sinner saved through 
faith in " the blood of sprinkling," and onward thence, even 
to "world without end." 

3. In the twenty-first chapter of Kevelation, we have another 
of these metaphors for the one true Church, in the word 
"Bride." "Come hither," says the angel of the vision, "and I 
will show thee The Bride, the Lamb's wife." And of whom 
does this spiritual Bride of Christ consist 1 Look at the end 
of the chapter where the figure has been changed to that of a 
city, and you will see. " The nations of them which are saved 
shall walk in the light of it ; and the kings of the earth do 
bring their glory and honor into it." " And there shall, in no 
wise, enter into it any thing that defileth, neither that worketh 
abomination, or a lie ; but they which are written in the 
Lamb's Book of Life." What can be clearer than these words ? 

It is true, that this vision is generally, though not by all, 
supposed to represent the state of the Church in heaven ; its 
finally finished perfection; inasmuch as "the Bride," or 
" Great City, the holy Jerusalem," was shewn " descending 
out of heaven from God, having the glory of God." Let it be 
supposed, then, just for the sake of the supposition, that the 
object of the vision was to exhibit the Church in its heavenly 
state. This would not destroy the force of the metaphor in 
its application to the present subject. For the Church 
becomes " The Bride, the Lamb's wife," on earth ; and it is 
only because she becomes such on earth, that she will finally 
constitute His Bride in Heaven. On earth the covenanting 
and espousals must take place between Christ and each 
individual; or in Heaven will never be celebrated the marriage 



METAPHORS. THE CHURCH A BRIDE; A BODY. 39 

between Him and the whole body of the saved. Hence, when 
the Apostle says of the holy marriage union between husband 
and wife, " This is a great mystery ;" he immediately adds ; " I 
speak of Christ and the Church/' That is, the holy ordinance 
of human marriage is a mystic symbol of the divine union now 
existing between Christ and the Church. This union has 
existed from the beginning, and the Church has been and will 
be " the B,ride the Lamb's wife" through all time, as well as 
through all eternity. 

That this union exists on earth, as well as in heaven, is 
evident from the last clause of the chapter in Revelation, from 
which I have quoted ; where it is said, none " shall enter into 
it," none shall constitute this Bride, " but they which are 
written in the Lamb's Book of Life." When are they written 
in that Book 1 I answer; here, on earth and in time ; or, no 
where and never. When the Seventy rejoiced that " the devils 
were subject unto them through Christ's name ; M he said " In 
this rejoice not ;" " but rather rejoice because your names are 
written in heaven." " Are written j" not " shall be written." 
Had they not been so written on earth, their names would 
never have stood in heaven, on the eternal register of life. 
And this is as true of every Christian, as it was of the Seventy. 

Even, then, on the supposition that the metaphoric Bride 
in this passage, means the Church in its finally perfected state, 
it shews that they only belong to it, in this its true sense, who, 
while on earth, have their names written in heaven. Still 
more definitive is the passage on its true construction, that the 
Bride, the Lamb's wife, is a figure of the true Church in this 
world, as well as in the world to come. In this light, the 
passage settles the question, and shows that the true Bride, the 
Church of Christ in its highest sense, is composed exclusively 
of "the saved," of those, who, on earth, have their "names 
written in the Lamb's Book of Life." His Book of Life. No 
spiritually dead soul is ever betrothed to the divinely living 
Savior. 

4. In various parts of the New Testament, we have still 
another of these metaphors for the Church, in the word " Body." 
"As we have many members in one Body," "so we, being 



40 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

many, are one Body in Christ."* " That he might reconcile 
both unto God in one Body by the cross."f Various gifts of 
ministry, we are told, were imparted to this Body, for " the 
perfecting of the saints ;" " for the edifying of the Body of 
Christ; till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the 
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." " That, 
speaking the truth in love, we may grow up into Him, in all 
things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole 
Body, fitly joined together and compacted by that which every 
joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the 
measure of every part, maketh increase of the Body unto the 
edifying of itself in love."J 

All this is exceedingly strong language. Christians are here 
called " one Body in Christ." " In this Body" they are 
" reconciled to God, by the cross." They are " saints," the 
edified "Body of Christ," growing unto a divine "unity;" 
" unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the 
fulness of Christ." They " grow up into Him in all things" as 
their " Head." " From Him the whole Body," every part 
and member, literally the whole Body " is fitly joined and 
compacted together." In this divinely vital fitting, joining 
and compacting together, " every joint supplieth " its due 
proportion. In this supply, there is an " effectual working," 
or divine energy. And, through this effectual working, there 
" is made a proportional, or symmetrical increase of the Body, 
in every single part." This last expression is the true force 
of the language in its original. So surely, then, as the 
metaphoric Body, here described, means the Church of Christ, 
every member of this Church, every limb, joint, ligament, and 
function, without the least exception, grows into and from 
Christ, by an inward divine energy, and is a spiritually 
vitalized part of that fitly joined and compacted Body, which 
carries the life of Christ in every possible portion, " from the 
crown of the head to the soles of the feet." Now, what sort 
of Church is this 1 Just that, which has been, over and over 

* Rom. xii ; 4, 5, f Eph. ii ; 16. $ Eph. iv ; 12-16. 



METAPHORS. THE CHURCH A BODY ', A TEMPLE. 41 

again, described : the great company of " the saved ;" whose 
names are written here on earth, and by the pen of the living 
Spirit, " in the Lamb's Book of Life." This is the true Church ; 
and those only who belong to this, belong to the true Body of 
Christ. 

I know it is said, that the language w T hich describes this 
Body, is addressed to the promiscuous mass of Christians in 
Ephesus and Rome, among whom, even then, there were 
probably some hypocrites and apostates ; and that, therefore, 
the Church, so described, is not a pure but a mixed Body. To 
this I reply, that, though there may have been, at Ephesus 
and Rome, hypoc/ites and apostates, who called themselves 
Christians, yet they were not Christians, and did not belong to 
the Body described. They were, through human infirmity, 
mixed up among Christians, but they were not Christians ; and 
therefore the Church, here addressed, was, in truth, made up 
of those only, whom the language employed truly describes. 
In this way alone are we able to escape the absurd alternative ; 
either that hypocrites and apostates are saved, or that there 
could not have been a single hypocrite or apostate either at 
Ephesus or at Rome. For, certain it is, that the language 
which we have quoted, describes a Body, every possible limb, 
or member of which, carries in it life from Christ, even the life 
which is eternal ; a Body, in which the divine energy, or 
in- working, " makes a proportional or symmetrical increase 
of every single part." But, upon this point, I shall have 
occasion to speak again ', for the present, therefore, it is 
dismissed. 

5. I shall notice but one further metaphor for the Church : 
and that we find in the use of the word " Temple." Thus, in 
Ephesians ii ; 21, speaking of " the household of God," the 
Apostle says, " All the building fitly framed together, groweth 
unto an holy Temple in the Lord." He is speaking here of 
precisely the same company of persons, whom, in some of the 
passages, already examined, he calls a " family," and a " body." 
In other places, also, the metaphor of a " Temple" occurs. 
Thus, in II Cor., sixth Chapter, Christians are called "the 
Temple of the living God 5" while, in I Cor., third Chapter, 



42 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

the Apostle inquires : " Know ye not that ye are the Temple 
of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you 1" 

That the Body, here called a Temple, is identical with the 
one, true Church of Christ, is manifest from the scope of the 
chapter, Eph. ii., from which the principal passage is taken. 
The Apostle there tells us, that in Christ, is " made, of twain, 
one new man." Now, what were " the twain" thus made 
" one" in Christ 1 Not the whole Jewish nation, and the 
whole Gentile world ; but " the saints" in the Jewish Church, 
before and at the Advent of Christ ; and " the saints" from 
Gentile races, gathered into the Church after that Advent. In 
other words ; the one, true and whole Church of Christ, in all 
ages j that " new man," which is made " one" in Christ ; and 
whose members are gathered from the " two" great branches of 
the human family. If this do not mean the Church, it will 
be difficult, nay impossible, to find a description in which it is 
included. 

The perfect soundness of this interpretation is evinced by 
what immediately precedes this chapter. Speaking of the 
same company of " saints," which he afterwards calls a 
Temple, the Apostle says that Christ is " Head over all things 
to the Church, which is His Body, the fulness of Him that 
filleth all in all."* This is definitive of the question. The 
Temple, described in the main passage before us, is the Church ; 
that Body, whose Head is Christ, and whose members Christ 
filleth, » all in all." 

But, if this Temple be the Church, it behoves us to look 
well to the question, of what materials is it composed 1 
Looking, then, at the same chapter, we find it composed of 
" saints" only ; of those, who, in their individual characters, 
are united with Christ by a true faith, and saved. They are 
particularly addressed as having been " quickened from a death 
in trespasses and sins," " raised up, and made to sit together 
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus j" " saved by grace through 
faith 5" "made nigh by the blood of Christ ;" and blessed with 
" access by one Spirit unto the Father." Both the Jewish and 

* Ephesians i j 22, 23. 



METAPHORS. THE CHURCH A TEMPLE. 43 

the Gentile saints, who constitute this " one new man" in 
Christ, are represented as "reconciled to God in one Body by 
the cross;" terms which cannot be appliable to mere saints b}- 
courtesy. It seems the grossest violence to language to say 
that unconverted Jews, and unconverted Gentiles are 
"reconciled to God by the cross," and so made " one Body 
in Christ." These terms can comprehend none but true 
believers, who are one in the true Savior. Hence, in the 
passage before us, the converted Ephesians are called " no more 
strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints ;" 
saints with saints, " and of the household of God;" " built on 
the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ 
himself being the Chief Corner Stone." " In Him all the 
building," all, every stone and timber, from foundation to 
pinnacle, all is " fitly framed together ;" and, thus framed, 
all " groweth," every part and particle, all groweth " unto an 
holy Temple in the Lord ;" a Temple all " holy," and all " in 
the Lord ;" all " builded together for an habitation of God 
through the Spirit ;" and, through that Spirit, filled by its 
occupant in every part. 

Such is the simple import of this passage, and of the Chapter 
in which it stands. It certainly describes the Church ; for, in 
the immediate context, the object described is called the 
Church ; and it as certainly describes a Church, every part of 
which is united to Christ by faith, in a vital and holy union; 
and, thus united, is saved by Him from sin and death. In 
making up this Temple, no account is taken of any other 
materials ; no other materials are to be found in any part of 
the sacred edifice. It is built for God ; and, " through the 
Spirit," God dwells in it ; vitalizing, sanctifying, and finally 
glorifying every possible part. It is that Church which Christ 
filleth, " all in all." 

This view is sustained by the true scriptural meaning of the 
word, Temple. In the sense of the Bible, what constitutes a 
Temple 1 Not a mere pile of hewn stone and cedar, overlaid 
with gold and silver. We, indeed, call such a structure a 
Temple; and, by this customary mode of speech, are too 
easily led to suppose that, in itself, it is a Temple. This, 



44 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

however, is not true. Why was that wonderful edifice at 
Jerusalem a true Temple 1 Not because of its materiality or 
visibility, costliness or splendor ; but because of God's 
indwelling. This indwelling makes any place, yea, anything 
a Temple. Hence, when Jacob, on his way to Haran, was 
overtaken by the night, and made the stones of Luz his pillow, 
and the firmament of heaven his covering ; and when,, upon 
waking, he found that God had been specially with him, in 
communion and covenant, he said, " Surely, Jehovah is in this 
place, and I knew it not." " How dreadful is this place ! 
This is none other but the House of God ; and this is the gate 
of heaven." He had been in a Temple, because he had been 
with God. It was an august Temple ; and it shews us what, 
in the scriptural sense, the true, essential constituents of a 
Temple are. 

For a like reason, the Body of Christ is a true Temple. 
When his hearers understood him to speak of destroying the 
Temple at Jerusalem, and building it in three days, we are 
told, "He spake of the Temple of His Body." It was a 
mysterious Temple ; for in " Him was God manifest in the 
flesh." "In Him dwell eth all the fullness of the Godhead 
bodily." 

This shews why even the Body of the individual Christian 
is a true Temple. " Know ye not that your Body is the 
Temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you V* Through His 
indwelling, the body of each and every Christian believer is, 
in a true, though subordinate sense, like that of his Lord, a 
Temple for the habitation of God ! 

This takes us right into the meaning of the word, as it stands 
in the passage on which I am commenting. The company, or 
collection of individuals there described, are a Temple, because 
in each and every one " Christ dwelleth by faith." His 
dwelling in each separately, and thus in all collectively, makes 
them, collectively, what each is individually, a Temple, a 
wondrous Temple ! " The Temple of the living God ;" of 
God living in them, " dwelling in them, and walking in them ;" 

*I Cor. vij 19. 



PRESENT HOLINESS; IMPERFECT, BUT REAL. 45 

He, " their God," and they " His people ;" He, their « Father," 
and they, His " sons and daughters." It is only so far as they 
answer these terms, that they can be built into it, and help to 
constitute this glorious Temple of saints ! 

This Temple, in every part inhabited, this Church, in every 
member vitalized, by God, is identical with that " spiritual 
house," which St. Peter describes as built of " living stones" 
on the foundation of Christ, the " living stone." This edifice 
he immediately calls " a peculiar people," designed " to shew 
forth the praises of Him, who hath called them out of darkness 
into His marvellous light,- which, in time past, were not a 
people ; but are now the people of God; which had not 
obtained mercy ; but now have obtained mercy."* It is 
eminently " a spiritual house," all alive with one life, from 
foundation to top-stone ; the life of Christ living in every one 
of His members. 

I have thus shewn that the idea of the Church, advanced in 
my first discourse, is distinctly found in several passages, which 
designedly describe the Church, under the various metaphors 
of a Fold, a Family, a Bride, a Body, and a Temple. One 
general observation, touching all these descriptions should be 
made. 

A careful study of all the contexts will show that those 
who belong to the company, thus variously described, are 
continually exhorted to holiness and all fidelity, and as 
continually warned against sin and all unfaithfulness. A little 
reflection, however, will satisfy us that this makes nothing 
against the idea of the Church which I am illustrating. It 
argues not that the Church, thus exhorted and warned, is 
composed, in part, of impenitent men, men without faith, and 
with none of the elements of holiness. It but proves, what 
all admit, that true Christians then, like true Christians now, 
were not, of necessity, perfect in holiness at the first moment 
of their union with Christ ; that they were too often needlessly 
imperfect ; and that therefore they were proper subjects for 
the discipline of such grave instructions as they received. 

* I Peter ii; 5, 9, 10. 



46 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

The " Spiritual House," into which they were builded, was, in 
every part, a live Temple. Spiritual life went out of the 
live rock, into every single stone built thereon ; so that, what 
was lacking in each, was, not the living principle, but some of 
its fuller and higher actings ; not the true nature of the holy 
materials, but some of their more finished and heavenly 
adornings. 

The point immediately before us, then, is sufficiently clear. 
Various passages in the Inspired Word describe the Church 
under the precise idea of it, which I have advanced ; an idea, 
which, in settling the essential marks of the one holy Catholic 
Church, knows nothing of any outward unity in submission to 
one temporal, human Head ; an idea, which, in developing 
what is essential to the existence of the Church, is equally 
unacquainted with any indispensably necessary external unity 
in subordination to one Episcopacy with sacraments episcopally 
administered ; an idea, in short, which, in unfolding the 
essential Being of the Church, holds forth Christ and life from 
Him by faith in the individual soul, as the very basis and 
substratum, yea, the very material and superstructure of that 
Church. This idea of Christ's holy Catholic Church, the Bible 
certainly gives ; and, I apprehend, it is only because men have 
been so long familiar with a'different, so long wedded, in truth, 
to a conflicting notion, that this seems, to any mind, strange, 
or, otherwise than based on the highest reason. 

I say not that the Bible never uses the word, Church, in a 
looser sense ; or that it never speaks of the Church as a being 
of external organization ; or that it never describes a ministry 
and sacraments as gracious endowments of the Church. But, 
reserving these points for future examination, when I hope to 
shew them in a consistent light, what I say, for the present, is, 
that the first, highest, truest idea, which the Bible gives of the 
Church, is that, in which Christ, and individual union with 
Him by a true faith, with the result of growing spiritual life, 
constitute the very soul and body of the divine confederacy. 
The Church, in this idea of it, is a thing, not of changeful and 
perishable visibilities, but of permanent and imperishable 
spiritualities. It is essentially marked by just such inward 



SUMMARY. 47 

relations and affections, as are at once suggested to thought by 
the metaphors, under which we have seen it figured. The 
Fold, the Family, the Bride, the Body, the Temple ; what 
things of life are these ; and how full is each of divine affinities ! 
What a Fold is that, of which Christ is Shepherd ; what a 
Family, in which Christ is Father j what a Bride, to which 
Christ is Husband ; what a Body, to^which Christ is Head ; and 
what a Temple, of which Christ is both Foundation-Stone and 
Cement! In the eye of the Bible, who is fit to be regarded 
in the light of a participant in these holy relationships 1 He 
is a sheep of Christ's Fold, who hears His voice and follows 
Him. He is one of Christ's Family, who is born unto Him by 
the Spirit through the Truth. He is part of Christ's Bride, 
who is espoused to Him in faith and holy love. He is a 
member of Christ's Body, who draws spiritual life, and feels a 
living control, from Him as Head. And he is in Christ's 
Temple, who is built on Him as the only Foundation, and 
grows, as by a sacred cement, to that, on which he is builded. 
He, who enters into these heavenly affinities, and is held by 
them, and he only, comes within the scope and embrace of 
such passages as have been examined ; and all who do thus 
enter, and are thus held in affinity with Christ, do also come 
within the scope and embrace of those passages ; by whatever 
outward name they may be known, in whatever varying clime 
they may be found, and under whatever outward disadvantages 
they may labor. Nothing but these affinities can make up the 
Body of the true and " holy Catholic Church ;" and nothing 
can cut off from this Body, where these affinities really exist. 
In the visible Church, as we shall hereafter see, outward 
institutions of ministry and sacraments have their true place, 
and are invested with their full importance. They bind us, as 
things of order and as means of grace ; but they bind not God 
as essentials to Christian life and to incorporation into Christ. 
His one spiritual and holy Church is the result of His working, 
by whatever means ; and when, by His working, it is gathered 
into Christ, nothing can cut off from it, but what, at the same 
time, separates from Christ himself. 

As yet, however, I have examined but one of the two sets 



48 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

of passages, which I have mentioned as sustaining this idea of 
the Church; those describing it under certain metaphors. I 
have still to examine those, which present it under its own 
proper name, the Church. 

In the meantime, while I am developing the idea before us, 
I have to ask two things ; that my readers will not conclude 
hastily against this view ; and that they will not, beforehand, 
write me down as no Churchman, because I have undertaken 
to develope the idea which this view involves. If they wait 
for what I have yet to say, I trust they will see that this view 
is really sustained by our own standards, as well as by the 
Bible; while, when I come to speak of the Church as an 
outward organization, I hope they will be able to perceive, 
still more clearly, how the view, thus sustained, is in perfect 
keeping with all good fidelity and affection to the Zion of our 
own tried loyalty and love. 

May God bless what has thus far been said, to the filling of 
all our hearts with life from Christ. 



DISCOURSE III. 



" Even as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might 
sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might 
present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such 
thing ; but that it should be holy and without blemish." — Ephesians v ; 25-27. 



The Church, in its comprehension, has already occupied 
ns through two discourses. In the first, after stating that 
definition of the Holy Catholic Church which restricts it 
to the Romish Communion, and that which extends it to all, 
who enjoy an Episcopal ministry and sacraments, I proceeded 
to seek a third idea of this Holy Catholic Church, or of the 
Church in its true comprehension ; and, in doing so, I arrived 
at the conclusion that it embraces all, of whatever name, who 
have an individual union with Christ by a true faith; that 
whole company of the saved, who, through this faith in Christ, 
are made holy, and become inheritors of eternal life. In the 
second discourse, I proposed to shew that this idea of the 
Church is sustained by the Bible ; and to this end proceeded 
to examine two separate sets of passages; the one presenting 
the Church under certain metaphors ,• the other presenting it 
under its own proper name. Of these two sets of passages, the 
former only has thus far been examined. I enter now on an 
examination of the latter. 

II. Passages which present the Church under its own proper 
name. 

It is important to make this examination, because, however 
clearly the Church, as described by metaphors, was found to 
correspond with the idea now before us, it is still contended, 
that in all cases where the word, Church, is used, it designates 
an outward and mixed body, composed, in part, of true believ- 
4, 



50 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL* 

ers, and, in part, of hypocrites, self-deceivers and apostates : 
or, that, in the Bible, the word, Church, always designates a 
visible and organized society, with its officers, sacraments, and 
mixed body of members. Now, if this be true, it will 
apparently invalidate the interpretation, already put on the 
metaphors, by which the Church is described. But, if it be 
not true, if there be passages in which the word Church carries 
the same sense with the interpreted metaphors, then will the 
interpretation put upon those metaphors be made certain, and 
the doctrine of the Church, which I maintain, be established. 
What, then, is the truth on this point 1 

I begin my reply by admitting, as I have already done, 
that in the Bible, the word, Church, is often used to designate 
a visible, and even an organized society ; the reason why, I 
will shew in its proper place : for the present, the fact of such 
use is freely admitted. Yet I maintain that this is not the 
true primitive sense of the word ; and that there are various 
passages which fully sustain the idea of the Church, as already 
deduced from an examination of metaphoric terms, and as 
indicated by this true primitive sense of the word itself. 

In ascertaining this true sense, it will be important to 
remember, that the word, Ecclesia, generally translated Church, 
means simply an assembly; an aggregate of individuals; and 
has so absolutely nothing to do wifh organization, rules and 
constitution of government, that it may be applied to a 
tumultuous gathering, a very mob ; and that, to designate a 
lawful, or organized body, it at first needed an adjective joined 
with it to express the quality of lawfulness, or organization. 
In itself, it means simply assembly, an aggregate of individuals. 
Thus we see in the nineteenth chapter of the Acts, when St. 
Paul was preaching at Ephesus, and when the Ephesians, 
thinking the honor of their goddess Diana in peril, and being 
excited to rage by the crafty silversmith, Demetrius, " rushed," 
rabble-like, " into the theatre," and for " two hours" shouted, 
u Great is Diana of the Ephesians ;" though " the whole city 
was filled with confusion," and "the more part knew not 
wherefore they were come together," save to threaten violence 
to the Christians, yet this very mob, the most disorderly of its 
kind, was called an Ecclesia. " The Ecclesia," says the sacred 



LITERAL PASSAGES. WORD ECCLESIA. 51 

writer, "was confused ; and the more part knew not wherefore 
they were come together." And, finally, when " the Town 
Clerk" had succeeded in " appeasing the people," he is said to 
have " dismissed the Ecclesia : " telling them, at the same 
time, that if they had any really actionable matter against the 
Christians, it " should be determined in a lawful assembly ;" 
(sv rj\ £vvo ( ac<j sx/cXr^ia.) 

The word itself, therefore, though generally translated 
Church, yet means simply an assembly, without any reference 
to visible organization and government : and when used to 
designate an organized body, it originally needed an adjective 
to express the quality of organization. It was probably by 
use, that, as applied to Christians, the adjective was dropped, 
and the word Ecclesia alone came to designate a visibly 
organized body. Primarily, as applied to the Disciples, it 
meant simply an assembly of Christians, without reference to 
any visible bond of unity and government ; just the aggregate 
of true believers in Christ, spiritual!}'- united to, and in Him.* 

* In Acts vii j 38, " Ecclesia " is applied to the Hebrews in the wilderness : 
and in Matt, xviii ; 17, to those who were to hear complaints against offenders. 

But, in Acts vii ; 38, it seems to be used of the aggregate of individuals, under 
the special guidance of God, and constituting the politico-thocratic state of the 
Hebrew people ; and not of a Church, in our ecclesiastical sense of the term, 
under full visible organization, and delegated human government. The Ecclesia 
of saints, or company of holy believers, was then, as now, in existence. But at 
that time, the word Ecclesia was applied to the people living under the Hebrew 
polit3 r , a pure theocracy, or state under the immediate government of God. The 
Church, in our ordinary sense, as visible and separate, or distingisuhable from 
the State, did not exist. Religious worship, with priest and sacrifices, was 
maintained ; but it was an appendage of the theocratic state, rather than of a 
separately existing Church. The whole people were called " the congregation" — 
the " ecclesia" — the aggregate of the individuals of the state. If it be contended 
that the Church, as a peculiar visible organization, under appointed officers, 
was then in existence and action, it must also be admitted that that Church was 
all in all ; that the state, as such, did not exist ; and that a Hebrew state, 
silently absorbing this visible Church into itself, subsequently took its origin in 
the appointment of the first king. I confess that, to my mind, the Hebrew 
polity in the wilderness, as well as in Canaan, appears more like a religious 
state, a social theocracy, carrying among its individuals the elements of the 
spiritual Church, than like a visible Church, existing to the exclusion of the 
state. Acts vii ; 38, would have been properly rendered — " He that was in the 
congregation," or " assembly," in the wilderness. 

In Matt, xviii ; 17, it is argued, an organized visible Church must be intended, 



52 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

As Christians multiplied, however, they gradually became a 
more and more perfectly organized body ; and then the word 
which had described them in their unorganized state, seems to 
have been adopted as their name in an organized capacity ; 
and the Ecclesia became a thing of rules and government, as 
well as of common union in Christ. But, originally, this 
common union of an assembly, or aggregate of individuals, 
with Christ was evidently, when used in a religious sense, its 
true idea. Let us now look at the passages, in which the word 
seems used in this sense. 

1. I cite, first, Matt, xvi ; 18. " Upon this rock I will 
build my Church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it." 

This, the reader is aware, is the very passage, on which Rome 
relies for establishing her exclusive claim as the one visible 
and Holy Catholic Church ; inasmuch as, in her view, it 
upholds the claim of her Bishop to universal supremacy, as 
successor to St. Peter, and sole vicar of Christ on earth. To 
support this claim, she interprets the whole passage thus : 
"Thou art Peter," a rock, "and, on this rock I will build 
my Church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it :"* 
thus making Peter virtually the foundation of the Church ; 
constituting for the Church one head on earth ; and making 
union with that head necessary. 

Now, even if this interpretation were, in principle, correct, 
it would yield no support to the claims of Borne and her 

with power to constitute itself a court, for the trial and punishment of offenders. 
But this is the seed of a monstrous evil. The idea of a Christian Church, with 
authority to try offences, and to punish by the infliction of positive penalty, is 
anti-christian, and has done incalculable mischief. Christ's words imply no 
more than this : u If thy brother offend thee, and will not listen to the private 
advice of two or three friends, nor to that of an " assembly" of the brethren, 
then withdraw from his company, and have no more to do with him than with a 
heathen or a publican." This, I believe, is all the power of discipline that 
Christ ever intended should be exercised by his disciples : the power of simply 
separating, or withdrawing themselves from all fellowship with incorrigibly 
unworthy professors of his name and Gospel. — (Vide, II Thess. iiij 6 — 15: 
I Tim. vi ; 3—5 : I Cor. v ; 1—13.) 

Some understand by Ecclesia, in Matt, xviii ; 17, the Jewish Sanhedrim, as a 
legal tribunal. This, of course, would take from the word all reference to the 
Church. 

* See Encyclopaedia Americana, Vol. x. p. 253. Art. "Pope, by a Catholic." 



LITERAL PASSAGES. MATT XVI; 18. 53 

Bishop, unless they could prove, what history furnishes no 
trustworthy means of proving, that St. Peter was the first 
Bishop, or ever a Bishop, of that Church. But, as my present 
concern is with the interpretation of the Bible, and not with 
history, I proceed to show that the foregoing interpretation is 
not correct, but evidently groundless. 

Christ, then, had just asked his Disciples — " Who do men 
say that I ami" And, on being told that some called him 
" John the Baptist," while others believed him to be " Elias," 
and others still " Jeremias," or "one of the prophets;" he 
inquired again; "But who say ye that I am]" To this 
question, addressed to them all, Simon, ever prompter than the 
rest, replied, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living 
God." Jesus immediately added, " Blessed art thou, Simon 
Bar-jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee; 
but my Father who is in Heaven." 

Now follows that part of the passage which I have quoted ; 
and, in order to show more clearly the entire groundlessness 
of the exposition to which I have adverted, I will give the two 
main words of what follows in their original Greek. " And I 
say unto thee," thou mail of heaven-taught courage, " thou art 
Petros" a stone ; " and upon this Petra" this rock, " I will 
build my Church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
it." "No devastations of death and the grave shall ever 
extinguish it ; and no subtlety or malice of the devil or of 
man shall ever prevail to move it from its immovable foun* 
dation." 

Upon the passage thus placed before us, I remark ; had 
Christ designed to constitute Simon the foundation and head 
of His Church on earth, He would doubtless have said : 
" Thou art Petros ; and on this Petros I will build my Church ; 
and thus built on thee, nothing shall ever prevail against it." 
This, however, He did not say: He changed the main word 
in the sentence ; and, by the change, intimated that he was 
pointing, not to Simon, but to something else, as the foundation 
and head of His impregnable Church. What was that something 
else % To understand this, bear in mind, Simon, under divine 
teaching, had just confessed—" Thou art the Christ, the Son 



54 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

of the Living God." This revelation — Jesus, the Anointed, 
the Only Begotten of the Living God ; this, the most elementary- 
fact in Christianity, the very corner-stone of the Christian 
faith, the very life of the Gospel and the Church — was the 
grand disclosure which the dialogue had elicited, the weighty 
theme which then filled all their minds ! How infinitely 
improbable, then, is it that Christ, while His soul was thus 
laboring, and while the minds of his Disciples were thus filled, 
with the grandest birth of His own revelation, turned instantly 
away from Himself, the very starting point and goal of His 
own inquiries, and brought forward Simon as a main object of 
regard ; a man bold and inspired, it is true, yet still rash and 
changeful ; and that such a Speaker, on such an occasion, 
finished His solemn announcement by declaring that He would 
build His eternally immovable Church on the foundation of a 
weak and unstable creature ! I repeat, nothing can be more 
groundless than such an exposition of this passage. Its true 
meaning is : " Thou art Petros, a stone, a bold man, speaking 
as my Father hath taught ; and, in the face of a hostile world, 
confessing me to be the Christ, the Son of the Living God. 
On this rock, this Petra which thou hast confessed — that is, on 
myself, as 'the Anointed, the Begotten of the Living God,' 
on this rock I will build my Church ; and the gates of hell 
shall not prevail against it. For I am He that ' hath the keys 
of hell and of death ; ' * I, therefore, by its resting on myself, 
will keep my Church against the power of both ! " 

To clear the truth of this meaning, look at subsequent 
revelations, which Christ sent by His great Apostle : " Our 
Fathers," said St. Paul, " were all under the cloud, and all 
passed through the sea ; and were all baptized unto Moses in 
the cloud and in the sea ; and did all eat of the same spiritual 
meat, and did all drink of the same spiritual drink ; for they 
drank of that spiritual rock that followed them ; and that rock, 
Petra, was Christ ! " f " Other Foundation can no man lay, 
than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." J Here, then, is the 
rock, the very " Petra" by name, of which Jesus was speaking 5 

*Rev.i;lS. tICor.xjl— 4, JICor.iiijlL 



LITERAL PASSAGES. MATT. XVI. 18. 55 

Christ Himself, the only foundation of His Church. This, 
doubtless, is the very foundation under the figure of which 
their own prophets had predicted Christ : " Behold I lay in 
Zion, for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner- 
stone, a sure foundation : he that believeth shall not make 
haste." That is ; ' whoso rests by faith on this Divine Rock 
shall never be moved. Nothing on earth, or in hell, shall ever 
move him.' This, imbodying the very idea of Matt. xvi. 18, 
was the language of their own Scriptures ; with this the 
Disciples were doubtless familiar ; this, therefore, we may well 
conclude, furnished the key to the meaning of their Divine 
Master, when Hs said, u On this rock I will build my Church, 
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." They 
needed no labored exposition in words ; they needed not, what 
some have conjectured that He used, even a silent motion of 
His hand towards His own bosom, to guide them in catching 
His meaning, when He uttered those living truths, and pro- 
claimed Himself* alone the Eternal Foundation, Safeguard, 
and Keeper of His own spiritual and believing Church ! 

The argument, in brief, stands thus : — Isaiah, speaking 
by that " spirit of prophecy " which is " the testimony 
of Jesus," foretells Christ as the foundation of a believing 
and immovable Church : Christ Himself, whose inspiration 
was in that prophet, calls the foundation of His Church, 
Petra : and Paul, speaking by revelation from the same In- 
spirer, declares that this Petra was Christ. This is light from 
the Bible. The Petra, in Matt, xvi ; 18, is not Simon, but 
Christ Himself; and the words of Jesus to His Disciple mean 
precisely this : " I call thee Petros, because thou hast boldly 
confessed Me, the true Petra, ' the Anointed Son of the living 

* Since writing these discourses, I have met with the following- comment on 
this celebrated text, from the Irenicum of Stillingfleet : " For, indeed, was the 
Church built upon St. Peter? then he must be chief foundation stone ; and Peter 
must build upon himself, and not upon Christ, and all the Apostles upon him ; 
and thus, in exalting the servant, we depress the Master ; and in setting a new 
foundation, we take away the only foundation, Jesus Christ." Again : " The 
rock then spoken of by Christ in his speech to Peter, if taken doctrinally, was 
St. Peter's confession ; as many of the Father's interpret it ; if taken personally, 
it was none but Christ himself, who used a like speech to this, when He said, 
1 Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up-' " John ii ; 19. 



56 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

God;' and on this Petra I will build my Church ; that living 
Temple of believers which shall never be moved." 

In what I have thus said, the reader will perceive, it has 
been my aim not merely to expose a groundless interpretation 
of the passage before us, but also to bring to view Christ, as the 
foundation of the true Church. Isaiah foretells a foundation, 
on which whosoever believeth, builds and is safe ; and Christ 
proclaims Himself a rock, on which is built a Church not to 
be moved by all the assaults of hell. What sort of a Church, 
then, is this 1 I answer ; it is a Church which Christ builds, 
not man. " On this rock I will build My Church." Christ 
is builder here, and only Christ. He is truly a builder. Not 
only does He constitute the true foundation ; but He really 
and ceaselessly works in building on that foundation. He 
does all the work in the building. By His Spirit and His 
Truth He lays every stone that is used in the process. " On 
this Rock / will build My Church." Here is no mistake, 
no fallibility, no human infirmity, in selecting and arranging 
materials. All is done with a Divine master-workman's 
knowledge and skill. Christ selects every part and builds it 
into the whole sacred Temple. And He never builds upon 
Himself, and into union with Himself, the souls of unbelieving, 
hypocritical, or self-deceiving men. He builds with those 
only, who accept His invitation, " come to Him" by faith 
and find " rest unto their souls ;" those only, who live and 
walk in Him, and who are thus " rooted and built up in Him, 
and stablished in the faith." This it is, that makes His Church 
immovable. Against the Church, in a merely visible sense, 
the gates of Hell have oft prevailed. By the floods which have 
poured through those open gates, the Churches of Jerusalem 
and Antioch, the Church of Africa, and the Seven Churches of 
Proconsular Asia, have all been swept away. The same has 
virtually happened to all the other and later Churches of the 
East ; mere fragments of them standing, as if to make their 
desolations the more visible. While, as to even the Great 
Western Church of the seven hilled city, though those wasteful 
floods leave her still standing in imposing magnitude, yet have 
they filled her with their own deep impurities, and prevailed to 



LITERAL PASSAGES. MATT. XVI. 18. 57 

make her the grand enemy of the Gospel. But, the true Church 
of Christ, the Church of all believers, the Church which He has 
built and is building, the Church which He is cementing to 
Himself in faith from all names and all nations, this has never 
been moved; against this the floods from the gates of hell have 
beaten and shall forever beat, in vain. Against this they never 
have prevailed, and never shall prevail. For this rests on 
Christ ; this Christ keeps safe from every storm. 

Such, then, I humbly venture to conclude, is the true sense 
of this famous passage from the teachings of Chist. In looking 
for the meaning of such very peculiar language, avowedly 
intended to draw Himself into view, and that, in His most 
essential, Divine and life-giving office, it is infinitely below the 
subject to suppose that He ends by merely presenting His 
Church, as founded on a fallible creature, and built by an 
imperfect human ministry, sent forth, in all their infirmity of 
judgment, to gather into an outward society all sorts of men; 
the believing and the unbelieving, the ho]y and the unholy ; 
united, as such heterogeneous elements must necessarily be, by 
mere visible bonds in a mere external organization. Nothing 
can come up to the nature and design of the occasion and 
the discourse, but that which considers Him as presenting 
Himself, "the Anointed Son of the Living God," the living 
and the life-giving Savior, building His own Spiritual Church 
on Himself; by His Word and Spirit calling, teaching and 
drawing believing hearts and sanctified souls into vital union 
with Himself; and thus constituting them in Himself an 
impregnable and immovable Church ; the great spiritual 
"assembly" of those, who "have received Christ Jesus the 
Lord," who " walk in Him," and are "rooted and built up in 
Him, and established in the faith."* This is Christ's work as 
Builder ; and those only, who are effectual subjects of this 
work, are members of that Church, which He builds on 
Himself, never to be moved. 

I have dwelt longer than I intended on this passage ; but its 
importance justifies the notice, which it has received. I will 

•Col.ii; 6,7. 



58 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

only add, that, at the time when Christ uttered these words, 
no distinctly Christian organization existed ; and therefore the 
word Church, or Ecclesia, here must mean, either, 1, the 
Spiritual Church of which I have spoken, the Holy Assembly 
of all in all ages, who are saved in Christ ; or, 2, the then 
visible Church under the Jewish Dispensation, followed by 
its successor, afterwards to be gathered from among Gentile 
nations ; although the Jewish portion was then about to crucify 
the Son of God, while the Gentile has often been guilty of 
" crucifying Him afresh, and putting Him to an open shame." 
Was it, then, in this latter, this visible sense, that Christ, on so 
peculiar an occasion, spoke of building His Church on Himself, 
and with such a firmness of union that it should never be 
moved'? The Jewish organization has fallen ; and numerous 
threatenings against guilty Gentile organizations have long 
since been executed in the ruin which has engulfed them. 
No ! The Church built on Christ has another character, and 
shares another destiny. 

2. I cite, next, Acts ii ; 47, "And the Lord added daily to 
the Church such as should be saved ; literally ; " The Lord 
daily added the saved, <rou£ tfw^ofxs'vouj, to the Church." 

This, also, was spoken before the first elements of distinctly 
Christian organization had appeared. As a " communion of 
Saints," indeed, the Church, the "Ecclesia," had existed from 
the beginning, and was then in true being. A peculiar Jewish 
organization also, under the form of a Theocratic State, had 
long been known, though it was then passing out of life. 
But, as a distinctly visible Christian organization, the Church, 
as we understand the term, had scarcely begun to develope 
itself. 

The sense of the passage, just recited, may be thus given : 
" The Lord daily increased the assembly, ' the Ecclesia,' by 
the numbers which were saved." The increase of the Church was 
in exact proportion to the increase of " the saved." No other 
element of it seems to have been then in view. The Church, 
here described, was evidently the simple aggregate of individ- 
uals, saved in Christ Jesus. The Spiritual Church, "the 



LITERAL PASSAGES. ACTS II ', 47. EPH. I ; 22, 23. 59 

Communion of Saints," the Ecclesia of the Saved, is the all- 
comprehending idea. 

3. Again ; in Ephesians, i ; 22, 23, occurs the passage which 
was noticed in explaining the metaphor of a Temple. Speak- 
ing of the supreme dominion of Christ, the Apostle says ; The 
Father " gave him to be Head over all to the Church which 
is His Body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." 

In seeking the true idea of the Church, of which Christ is 
here called the Head, it is important to observe the class of 
persons, of whom, in this part of his Epistle, the writer is 
speaking. He had just been speaking, then, of " The hope of 
Christ's calling;" and of "The riches of the glory of His 
Inheritance in the Saints 5" and of " The greatness of His 
power to-us-ward, who believe :" and then, having penned the 
passage before us, he immediately proceeds to speak of those, 
who having been "dead in trepasses and sins," were at length, 
unlike all the rest of a dead world, "quickened together with 
Christ, and raised up together, and made to sit together in 
heavenly places," or relations, "in Christ Jesus." It must, 
therefore, be allowed that the persons, whom the Apostle had 
in his mind, when he here used the word, Church, were the 
renewed subjects of Christ's mighty and saving power through 
the Gospel. His whole discourse, in this part, teems with the 
loftiest possible conceptions of the character and privileges of 
those, who thus belong, in faith and holiness, to Christ. These 
conceptions lie all round the word, Church, as here used ,• they 
enter into that word, and imbody themselves alone in the 
idea, to which the name, Church, is here given. This Church 
imbodies "hope of Christ's calling;" this Church is "His 
Inheritance in the Saints ;" this Church displays " the exceed- 
ing greatness of His power towards them that believe ;" this is 
the Church which, in the true sense, constitutes " His Body ;" 
and to this, by a divine affinity, He is united as " Head." This 
is the true " Fulness of Him that filleth all in all." 

These last words evidently fix this idea, as the true sense of 
the term, Church, in this place ; "the fulness of Him that filleth 
all in all." The Church is here called " the fulness of Christ," 
not because He is permanently incarnate in the Church, by the 



60 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

presence and communication of His real Body and Blood, but, 
because, without His Church, He is pleased to consider Him- 
self incomplete, wanting* the most important of the w Princi- 
palities and powers," that are subject unto Him. This Church 
is the complement, or fulness, of Himself; that, which renders 
Him complete or full in His spiritual dominion. A king must 
have a kingdom ; and a head a body. The idea of the one 
would be incomplete without the other. A kingdom, there- 
fore, may be called the complement, or fulness, of a king ; 
and a body, the complement, or fulness, of a Head. In this 
sense, the Church is "the fulness of Christ." It is that body, 
without which the very idea of His headship would be incom- 
plete. Hence, His Apostle declares : " Ye are complete in 
Him, which is the Head of all principality and power."* 
What, then, is the character of that Body, which is thus 
Christ's u fullness 1" Are wicked men, baptized unbelievers 
and hypocrites, part of Christ's fulness ] Is the idea of His 
headship incomplete without them'? 

It might, indeed, be said, that the Church, necessary to com- 
plete the idea of Christ's Headship, is one, which may contain 
some false and dead members ; and that therefore a mixed 
Church may here be described as " the fulness of Christ." — 
But, as if to shew the inadmissibility of this construction, the 
expression is made still more peculiar ; " the fulness of Him, 
that filleth all in all." Taken in its connexion, this is not a 
mere general assertion of Christ's omnipresence, and all-sus- 
taining Providence in the world ; but a special declaration of 
His indwelling and nurture of His whole Church. He fills 
this Church "all in all:" that is; He fills all the members of 
His true, mystical Body with all spiritual grace; with all that 
is necessary to the perfecting of the divine whole. The Church 
is His " Fulness;" and He thus fills the Church " all in all." 
There is no member of the Church as here intended, whom 
He does not ultimately fill with " all spiritual grace and 
benediction." 

4. In a similar sense is the word used in the third chapter of 
this same Epistle, (vs. 10, 20, 21.) Immediately after his 
beautiful description of the Church, already noticed under the 

* Col. ii 5 10. j 



LITERAL PASSAGES. EPH. in; 10,20,21. COL. i : 9, 29. 61 

metaphor of a Temple, the Apostle returns to the literal use 
of the word, Church, and, in his peculiarly elevated strain, 
declares that "God created all things by Jesus Christ, to the 
intent that now, unto the Principalities and powers in heavenly 
places, might be" made "known by the Church the manifold 
wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose, which He 
purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." And then, as a Doxology 
to that most sublime prayer, which closes the chapter, he adds ; 
"And now, unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly 
above all that we ask or think, according to the power that 
worketh in us, to Him be glory in the Church by Christ 
Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end." 

Literally, this last expression runs; " To Him be glory in 
the Church in Christ Jesus ; the grammatic turn of the 
language being precisely like that in Acts vii ; 38 ; where 
Moses is called ; " He that was in the Church in the wilder- 
ness."* 

" To Him be glory in the Church, which is in Christ Jesus ;" 
the Church which is in Him truly, and by a divine affinity.- — 
A visible and mixed Church is not, as a whole, truly in Christ* 
Only a part of it, true and sanctified believers, is thus in Him. 
But the whole Church, here presented, is in Christ. It is 
"The Church in Christ Jesus." It is, therefore, the spiritual 
and holy, in distinction from a visible and mixed, Church, of 
which the Apostle speaks. This alone comes up, fully and 
justifyingly, to the'amazing strength of the language used. This 
alone is the Church, which "now makes known, and will 
forever and ever make known, to the heavenly Principalities 
and powers, the manifold wisdom of God." This alone was 
a Body fit to be comprehended in God's "eternal purpose, 
which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

5. A passage, parallel in import with the last two, is seen in 
the first chapter of Col. (9, 29). The Apostle is there speak- 
ing of those, whom God had " made meet to be partakers of the 
inheritance of the Saints in light ;" whom He " had delivered 
from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of 
His dear Son ;" who had been " alienated and enemies in their 

* " h *% ixxXyciiq iv XptcrT'9 'i^crou" 
<% ev ty £xx%rj<}t,a iv ty £p^9 



62 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

minds by wicked works," but w T hom Christ " had now recon- 
ciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present them holy 
and unblamable, and unreprovable in his sight ;" and to whom, 
as " Saints," God had " made manifest" " the glory of His 
mystery among the Gentiles, which was, Christ in them the 
hope of glory." This whole body is represented as " recon- 
ciled" to God " through the blood of the Cross ; and as exist- 
ing, like the Spiritual Family formerly described, "whether in 
Earth or in Heaven." In the very midst of these strong expres- 
sions, exclusively descriptive of the Saints and of the Evangelic 
kingdom of Christ, the Apostle brings in the same idea as 
before of Christ's supreme dominion over heavenly Principali- 
ties and powers ; of His creation of all things ; and of the 
Father's pleasure " that in Him should all fulness dwell :" and 
it is while uttering all this that Paul says of Christ 5 " He is the 
Head of the Body — the Church :" while he professes, for Him- 
self, to "rejoice in His sufferings for" the Saints, and in " filling 
up in his flesh that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ, for 
His Body's sake, which is the Church." It must be admitted, 
then, that the Word, Church, here, means the whole aggregate, 
in heaven and earth, of the saints. The very idea of the 
Church, as here presented, is simply a complex, or collection 
of the Holy ones described. In what is said, there is nothing 
to suggest any other comprehension, or character, of this 
divinely mystical Body of Christ. 

6. I come now to the passage placed at the head of this 
discourse (Eph. v; 25-27) ; "Even as Christ also loved the 
Church and gave Himself for it ; that he might sanctify and 
cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word ; that He 
might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot 
or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy and 
without blemish." 

If the Church here mentioned be the visible Church, com- 
posed of all the Baptized, we shall be driven to admit, 
as multitudes strenuously claim, that all the Baptized are 
saved ; and that, in order to their salvation, a Purgatory 
is necessary to purify the myriads of them, who die under 
all the defilements of sin. For, that the Church, which this 



LITERAL PASSAGES. EPH. VJ 25-27. I TIM. Ill ; 15. 63 

passage describes, is all saved, is manifest from what pre- 
cedes, as well as from the passage itself. The words occur in 
the midst of an exhortation to husbands and wives. " The 
husband," says the Apostle, " is the head of the wife, even as 
Christ is the Head of the Church : and He is the Savior of the 
Body." That is : marriage is a sacred symbol of the union 
between Christ and the Church. With the Church as here 
intended, Christ holds a living and Spiritual affinity. His 
union with it is saving, " He is the Savior of the Body." The 
whole Body, of which He is the Saviour, is identical with the 
whole Church, of which he is the Head. As no part of the 
Body, of which He is Savior, is lost ; so, no member of the 
Church, of which He is thus the Head, perishes. His Headship 
in it is vital, sanctifying, saving. And so it follows ; He 
"loved this Church," all of it, "and gave Himself for it, that 
He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by 
the Word ;" or, by the sanctifying and cleansing power of the 
Spirit and the Truth, as predicted under the figures of sprink- 
ling and pouring clean water on the people of God ;* and " that 
He might present it to Himself a glorious Church ; not having 
spot or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy 
and without blemish." 

Such is the Church of which St. Paul says, " Christ is the 
Savior of the Body." In other words ; the Church, here in- 
tended, is the Body of the saved in Christ Jesus. Can it, then, 
be admitted, that he is here speaking of the visible Church, 
composed of all the Baptized ? Is Christ the Savior of this 
Body, taken as a whole ? We cannot receive a proposition so 
evidently untrue. And yet, the Church, in this passage, is just 
that Body, of which, taken as a whole, Christ is the Savior. 
The Apostle, therefore, is not speaking of the visible Church 
of the Baptized, but of the spiritual Church of the saved. 

7. The well-known passage (I Tim. iii ; 15), is, also, by some 
of our old writers, understood in the same sense : " That thou 
mightest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the 
House" (or household) " of God j which is the Church of the 
living God ; the pillar and ground of the Truth." 

* Ezek. xxxvi ; 25-27. Isa. xliv ; 3. 



64 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

Speaking in the style of those old writers, we should say 3 
the Church, here named, is the live Church of the living God. 
As such, it is really " the pillar and ground of the Truth." It 
receives, exhibits and supports the Truth, always, in its purity 
and its entireness. Nothing, short of its Divine Head, is so 
precious to it, as this Truth, loftily held up, and unwaveringly 
sustained. Death is sweeter to this Church than treason to 
the Truth. This cannot be said of the Church as a visible and 
mixed Body. In this character, it has often rejected, and 
oftener still corrupted or concealed, the true and saving Word 
of God. It is only the live Church of Christ, that always 
retains, magnifies and preserves the pure Word of His living 
Truth. 

8. Again, in Heb. ii ; 10-12, we have this remarkable Ian- 
vuage : " It became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom 
are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the 
Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings ; for both 
He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified, are all of one ; 
for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren : say- 
ing, I will declare thy name unto my brethren ; in the midst 
of the Church will I sing praise unto thee." 

Here, the meaning of the Word, Church, appears unconceal- 
ably manifest. God proposes to Himself avast object ; the 
" bringing of many sons to glory," the salvation of the great 
company of Holy ones : He furnishes the means of securing 
this vast object, by " making the Captain of their salvation per- 
fect through sufferings," the atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of 
God : He educes the result of the whole, in the one sacred 
family of Him that sanctifieth, and them that are sanctified. 
And then, this sanctifying Savior appears among them, call- 
ing them His Brethren, His Spiritual Kin, and naming them 
the Church, in the midst of which He is to praise the gra- 
cious Father of this whole plan and consumation. Here, the 
word, Church, is palpably a mere synonym for the blessed 
company of those whom Christ calls His " Brethren" ; His 
brethren, not only in that He shares with them their human 
nature, but in that they share with Him His Spiritual Life. 
And carrying back the thought through the sentence ; this 
company of brethren with Christ are but identical with that 



LITERAL PASSAGES. HEB. XII ; 22-24. 65 

one sacred family, of the Sanctifier and the sanctified ; as these, 
in their turn, are but identical with that bright army of " sons," 
whom, under the victorious " Captain of their salvation," God 
is, from age to age, " bringing to glory." The passage pre- 
sents us with but one Company, though under different names; 
so that what comes out as the Church in the last, is but another 
term for the Sons of Glory in the first, of these significant ex- 
pressions. 

9. I have but one further passage to cite. It is, however, if 
possible, more decisive of the point before us than even that 
just considered. It is in Heb. xii ; 22-24-. ''-Ye are come," says 
the Apostle, not to Mount Sinai, but "to Mount Zion, unto the 
City of the living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem ; even to an 
innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and 
Church of the first born, written in heaven, and to God the 
Judge of all, and to the Spirits of just men made perfect, and 
to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood 
of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel." 

Here ligbt shines, as with a perfect demonstration, on the 
point, which I am illustrating. " The Mount Zion, the City of 
the living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem," are but different 
synonyms for the whole Communion and fellowship of God's 
holy subjects ; consisting (as our hymn expresses the idea), of 
"Angels and living saints and dead;" or (as the words, just 
read, import), of " the innumerable company of angels," the 
M General Assembly and Church of the First-born, written in 
heaven," and the " Spirits of just men made perfect ;" the whole 
in subjection to ** God, the Judge of all, and to Jesus, the Me- 
diator of the new Covenant." With Angels, as one part of this 
great Communion, our argument is not specially concerned. 
Our interest, at present, is with the other part, " Living Saints 
and dead." These, together, make up " the General Assembly 
and Church of the First-born, which are written in Heaven" 
while living on earth, and which, upon reaching Heaven, be- 
come " Spirits of the just made perfect ;" as this Church, to- 
gether with "the innumerable company of Angels," makes up 
" the City of the living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem." 

Here, then, is the Church in the very idea of it, which we 
5 



66 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

have been seeking ; the whole " Assembly," on earth and in 
heaven, of saved and glorified souls. It is not the Church as 
it will be after the Judgment Day j but the Church, as it now 
is, consisting of those saints, who live in the flesh, and of those 
who live only in the spirit. And, to this Church every true 
believer comes, when he comes by a living faith to Christ. 
" Ye are come to the General Assembly and Church of the first 
born."* 

We may as well say that, not till after the Judgment, do true 
believers " come to God, and to Jesus, the Mediator of the new 
Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling ;" as to say that they 
do not come into this Church till that time. Because part of 
this Church is in Heaven, that is no reason why we may not 
enter it on earth. We must enter it on earth, or we never 
shall enter it in Heaven. True believers " come now to God ;" 
they come, in this life, " to Jesus, the Mediator of the new 
Covenant," and to the precious " blood of sprinkling j" and 
they come in this life even " to'the innumerable company of 
Angels, and to the Spirits of just men made perfect," con- 
sidered as parts of " the Heavenly Jerusalem," or of the uni- 
versal fellowship of the holy. They come to all these now, 
in the faith, that makes them one in Christ ; in the realizing of 
Life Eternal, begun already in their souls ; and in the inner 
sealings of the Spirit, "whereby they are sealed unto the Day 
of Redemption." These are all present realities ; the earthly 
privileges of their "citizenship in Heaven;" the seals of their 
heirship, yea, their joint heirship with Christ, of the full and 
glorious inheritance of His Everlasting Kingdom. They wait 
not for these things, in dubious gloom, till the darkness of the 
grave be passed. The light of them shines full on their blessed 
lot in the land of the living. All these things, however, are 
no more surely God's Truth than is this other ; that true Chris- 



* It is, to me, quite surprising that MeKnight renders Heb. xii ; 22-24, (" Ye 
are come unto Mount Zion, etc.") by" Ye shall come, etc.," on the ground, that 
we cannot be said to come now " to the Heavenly Jerusalem ;" that advent 
being a yet future event. He Hebraistically changes a Greek praeterite into a 
future tense ; though the very obvious sense, which I have given, rendered such 
a violent resort needless. 



LITERAL PASSAGES. 67 

tians come now to this " General Assembly and Church of the 
First-born." The names of all the members of this Church are 
"written in Heaven," while they sojourn on earth j and the 
Church, to which they thus belong, hath a life, which, at the 
same time, touches and animates every Saint below, and every 
Saint above. 

This, then, is the Church of Christ, in its essence, and in its 
true comprehension. The Bible teaches this doctrine of the 
Church. Every soul that hath true faith in Christ and is saved, 
is a member of the true Church of Christ, of His Church in its 
most essential characteristics; and this idea of His Church is 
unspeakably more important than all that men can conceive 
of outward splendor, or even of visible unity. 

I close here my examination of passages in support of the 
definition of the Church with which I started. All the meta- 
phors illustrated, and all the texts of literal import explained, 
are filled with light from this last description of the Church. 
They all come together and find their full expression in this 
one graphic outline of the true Church of Christ, as it now 
exists on earth and in heaven. 

What remains on this part of the subject, and before pro- 
ceeding to consider the Church in its more visible aspects, is, 
to notice some objections to the view which has been taken ; 
to show its importance in Christian theology, and to compare 
it with our own standards, and what may be termed, the 
standard writers of our Protestant Eeformation. To these 
points, therefore, I propose to pass in my next discourse, 



DISCOURSE IV. 



" Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep. — John x ; 26." 



It was one of the strong features of the Protestant Refor- 
mation, that it drew into prominence that long hidden idea of 
the Church, which it has been the object of these discourses to 
present. "The Church," said one of the teachers of that 
great age, " is the congregation," the assembly, the ecclesia, 
il of those who are united by the same Spirit, the same faith, 
the same God, the same Mediator, the same Word $ by which 
alone they are governed, and in which alone they have life."* 
A modern historian of that age speaks thus : " Undoubtedly 
the Lord has left His Church outward seals of His grace ; but 
He has not attached salvation to these signs. The essential 
point is, the connexion of the faithful with the Word, with 
the Holy Ghost, with the Head of the Church. This is the 
great truth, which the Reform proclaims."! The opposite doc- 
trine had tended to generate, at least in the common mind, the 
idea that " the Church saves." It was the great work of Re- 
formation to bring out, into proper distinctness, the truth that 
" Christ alone saves ;" and that His true Church is just the 
Body, or Communion of those whom He saves. 

I. But, against this idea of the Church it is objected, that 
it rests on the distinction between what has been called the 
Visible and the Invisible Church. This distinction, it is con- 
tended, is groundless. To many Christians, the thought of 

* Vide D'Aubigne's Hist. Ref., vol. iv. p. 34. f Ibid., vol. iv. p. 107. 



70 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

giving the name, Church, to the simple aggregate of those who 
believe in Christ unto eternal life, and whose hearts are, with 
certainty, known to God only, is even positively distasteful. 

But, why should this be 1 That there is a great company, 
composed exclusively of saints, or true believers in Christ 
made holy ; that He is, in the truest sense, their Spiritual, or 
Mystical Head; and that they are, in the truest sense, His 
Spiritual, or Mystical Body ; these are things as certain as 
that there are a Bible and a Savior. Why, then, should not 
the name, Church, be given to what is thus, in reality, a 
Church, to the holy company thus constituting one Mystical 
Body and Head 1 It has been shown, as I humbly venture to 
think, that, to this holy Communion, the name, Church, is 
given by Inspiration itself. The Bible, it is true, speaks of 
visible and organized bodies, as Churches. Such were the 
Seven Churches of the Lesser Asia, and other distinct Chris- 
tian organizations. But, it also speaks of the Body of the 
Saved, of true believers in Christ, as the Church ; and there- 
fore justifies the distinction between the Visible and the Spirit- 
ual Church. These are not, indeed, two separate and indepen- 
dent Bodies, without any mutual relation. The one is included 
in the other ; as the wheaten kernels are contained in the straw 
and husks. Still, the two are distinguishable and ought never 
to be confounded. A field of the growing grain, considered 
as one whole, is called wheat. So, too, is a measure of the 
pure, clean kernel, called wheat. And it is the true wheat. 
It is that which gives name to the whole crop, taken together. 
This whole is called wheat, for the simple reason that, among 
it, the true wheat is found. Is this making the straw and the 
husk of no value % By no means. They are highly import- 
ant. They minister externally to the protection of the kernel. 
Yet, they are not wheat ; and when the kernel is ripe, 
they are separated and cast aside. In like manner, the whole 
visible, organized Body is called the Church. So, too, is the 
great Communion of Saints, taken separately, called the 
Church. And it is, in the truest sense, the Church. It is that, 
which gives name to the visible, and organized Society. This 
visible Society is called, the Church, for the simple reason that, 



THE SPIRITUAL AND THE VISIBLE CHURCH DISTINGUISHED. 71 

within it the true Church is ordinarily found. Nor is this to 
disparage the Church, as a visible and organized Society. 
This Society is of great importance. In relation to the true 
Spiritual Church, it discharges various and highly beneficial 
offices. Yet, it is not, in the highest sense, the Church ; and, 
in the sight of God, many of its members are seen to have none 
but a nominal connexion with the true Mystic Body of Christ. 

But, there are particular expressions in Scripture, which 
imply this distinction between the Visible and the Spiritual 
Church. The passage, John x ; 26, is one. " Ye believe not, 
because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you." The Jews, 
here addressed, claimed to be true descendants of Abraham ; 
they even claimed God as their Father ;* and they were 
members of the Visible Church, so far as the Church then 
visibly existed. Yet, Christ tells them they were not " of His 
Sheep," as He had before told them they were " of their 
Father, the Devil. "f Notwithstanding their membership in the 
Visible Church, they were not of Christ's Sheep ; not of His 
true Fold ; not of His true Church. There were then, as 
well as now, both the Visible and the Spiritual Church ; and 
Christ knew perfectly the distinction, as well as the connexion, 
between the two. 

The language of St. Paul goes to the same point. " He is 
not a Jew, who is one outwardly ; neither is that circumcision, 
which is outward in the flesh ; but, he is a Jew, who is one 
inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart $ in the spirit 
and not in the letter \ whose praise is not of men, but of 
God. "J " They are not all Israel, who are of Israel ; neither 
because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children." 
" That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not 
the children of God ; but the children of the promise are 
counted for the Seed."§ " Know ye, therefore, that they 
which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. "|| 

Here, the distinction between the Visible and the Spiritual 
Israel, between the Visible and the Spiritual Church, is 
palpable. Membership in the Spiritual body is constituted, 
not by a mere "outward" bond, but by a Divine, "in-. 

* John via ; 33-42. f John viii j 43, 44. % Rom. ii ; 28, 29, 

§ Rom. ix ; 6-8. || Gal. iii ; 7. 



72 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

ward " work ; " the circumcision of the heart ; in the 
spirit, and not in the letter ; whose praise is not of men, but 
of God." " The children of the Promise," they, who, in- 
heriting Abraham's faith, have the bond of a spiritual kindred 
with Abraham ; these, and these only, " are counted for the 
seed." In making up the true family of Christ, the chosen 
"seed," none but these are "counted;" none but these are 
taken into Heaven's reckoning. The real Israel, the true 
Church of Christ, never has been, and never will be composed 
of any but this really believing and holy seed. 

I have referred, very briefly, to the foregoing expressions, to 
show that the Bible recognizes the distinction, as a vital one, 
between the Visible and the Spiritual Church ; and that, there- 
fore, when we recognize and hold up the distinction, we are 
not following a mere floating illusion of our own brain, but are 
grasping one of the settled verities of the Word of God. 
There is a Visible and there is a Spiritual Church. The two 
are distinguishable, though related Bodies. The amount of 
their relation is, however, a variable quantity. At times, they 
have been almost identical j the distinction being hardly per- 
ceptible. Then, again, they have become immensely unlike, 
and held together by scarcely a remaining bond. Sometimes 
the Visible Church has been composed of nearly all pure 
Wheat. At others, under long, mildewing seasons, it has nearly 
all run to straw and husks, with but here and there a sound 
and ripe kernel to be found. Thus, when the fires of Pagan 
persecution kept the Church comparatively pure from dross, 
the Visible and the Spiritual Church were nearly one and the 
same. But, in later ages, when the fires were lighted in 
Christ's name, and turned against the true gold of His own 
Spiritual Temple ; then the Visible Church contained little but 
an impure, though shining tinsel. It became, in its most 
obtrusive characteristics, a splendid body of death, sitting on 
thrones and chairs of state ; while the spiritual Church, so far, 
at least, as it was then on earth, was a hidden body of Life, 
concealed in caves and among mountains. The one was mainly 
a gorgeous system of forms and formal persecutors ; the other, 
a little company of faith and faithful sufferers ; the two being 



SENSE IN WHICH THE CHURCH IS INVISIBLE. 73 

held together by some remaining bonds, but scarcely touching 
each other by the links of a kindred life. In all ages, how- 
ever, the distinction between the two has existed. This dis- 
tinction has never disappeared. Nor has there ever been a 
time, when the name, Church, did not rightfully belong to the 
Spiritual, as thus distinguished from the Visible Body. 

It may be well, before proceeding to show the importance 
of these views to Christian Theology, and their agreement 
with our own standards, to spend one moment in explaining 
the sense, in which the Church, as now presented, has, by 
some been called, Invisible. This epithet was much used in 
the seventeenth century j that grand period of theologic con- 
flict between the Protestant Church in England, and her 
Romish opponents. Whether it were wisely selected may be 
doubtful. Be this as it may ; it meant, not that the Church, 
in this idea of it, is a mere abstraction, an invisible notion ; 
but, that the faith in Christ and its resulting holiness, which 
constitute men members of this Church, are invisible ; seen 
by none but God. God only knows, with absolute certainty, 
who belong to this true Church of Christ. We may judge 
men, reasonably well, " by their fruits." Still, our judgments 
on this evidence are fallible. God alone " knoweth who are 
His" in such a way as not, by possibility, to be deceived. 
For this reason, the old writers called the whole communion 
of such, "The Invisible Church." The persons of those, who 
constitute it, so long as they continue on earth, are visible ; 
but their inward proofs of membership are invisible. Their 
organization in Christ, as Head, is spiritual, not an object of 
sense. God alone can point out their persons with infallible 
certainty. Thus understood, there can be no solid objection 
to the term ; although I have not chosen to adopt it ; because, 
in every respect, save that of the secret of true membership 
or organization in Christ, this Church is as visible as any 
other body in the world. 

II. The importance to Christian Theology of the view 
which I have given, demands a fuller notice than can now be 
taken. I can but glance at three points. 

1. We know, then, that Christ and His Apostles insist much 



74 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

on the union of Christians and the unity of the Church. 
They speak of the benefits of this unity ; of its necessity, as 
an evidence to the world, of Christ's mission from the Father ; 
and of the evil of violating this unity. And, in His last, all- 
prevalent prayer, Christ virtually prophecies that this unity 
shall continue unbroken ; and that its glorious testimony to the 
Truth shall be felt and acknowledged by the world. 

The question, then, arises ; was this sacred, this divine unity, 
predicated of the Visible, or of the Spiritual Church 1 And 
it is one of the most important questions in Christian Theo- 
logy. Volumes have been written on it. In answer, however, 
I have space to say but this ; the unity, on which Christ so 
fervently insists, that blest and heavenly bond, which makes 
Christians one, even as Christ and the Father are one, this 
unity resides in the Spiritual Church. It is a reality, and an 
actuality in this Church and in no other. In this Church it 
has never been broken. Injured, in some degree, it may have 
been, through human infirmity ; but, broken it has never been. 
In the main it has been preserved untouched. True disciples 
of Christ have disputed, and, while unknown to each other, 
have indulged harsh and unkind feelings. But, it has never 
needed more than that they should come together and know 
each other truly, to show them how perfectly, in all essential 
things, they were one in Christ. This coming together in 
thorough, mutual knowledge, has ever proved the joining of 
the two ends of that electric chain of spiritual kindred, which, 
starting from the heart of Christ, passes round through the 
heart of every true Christian, and, returning to Christ again, 
holds the whole in one sacred brotherhood. That touch of 
mutual knowledge and intercourse has ever been all that was 
needed to start the current of their sympathetic life, and put 
it instantly in warm, and glowing, and blissful circulation ! 
O yes ! It is true ; it is no dream ! This mutual and thorough 
knowledge of each other has ever been, to true Christians, the 
sweet and silent voice of Christ in their hearts, speaking their 
brief tempests into a perfect calm and making them realize 
that the vessel, in which they are embarked, carries Him, who 
carries Heaven ! Under the one divine Headship of Christ, 



IMPORTANCE OF THIS VIEW. 75 

this spiritual Church holds and will forever hold, unbroken 
unity ; while efforts to force unity on the Visible Church have 
been productive, mainly, of either hypocrisy or bloodshed. 

2. Again, we know that " exceedingly great and precious 
promises" are made to the followers of Christ. " Where two 
or three are gathered together in my name, there am 1 in the 
midst of them." " Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believ- 
ing, ye shall receive." " my sheep hear my voice, and I know 
them, and they follow me ; and I give unto them Eternal 
Life ; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck 
them out of my hand." " No weapon, that is formed against 
thee, shall prosper ; and every tongue, that shall rise against 
thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn." " Lo ! I am with 
you always, even unto the end of the world." 

Here, too, the question arises — with the former equally 
important to Christian Theology — are these and kindred 
promises made to Christians as a Visible, or as a Spiritual 
Church? The brief, but unhesitating answer is, they are 
made to them as a Spiritual Church ; as the one whole Com- 
munion of Christ's true followers. To this Church alone are 
they appropriate : to this alone have they been fulfilled. This 
Church has, evermore, Christ's presence. Against this Church 
no weapon has ever prospered. In Christ's promises, she is 
virtually omnipotent. In his faithfulness, her final victory is 
sure. His promises are her heritage ; and his grace, her pos- 
session. His blessings clothe her as with garments of salva- 
tion. She is " The King's Daughter, all-glorious within ;" and 
her mercies have ever been, and shall forever be, " The sure 
mercies of David." All this can be said of the Church in no 
other sense than that, in which she is spiritual, truh- a " Com- 
munion of saints." To apply these promises to the Visible 
Church is a source of perilous delusion to the souls of men. 

3. Once more ; We know that a species of Indefectibility, 
or Infallibility, has been invested in the Church. " The 
Church of the living God is the pillar and ground of the 
Truth." She is to be " guided" by the Holy Spirit " into 
all Truth." And, against her, in her Truth, as well as in her 
fortunes, "the gates of Hell are never to prevail." 



76 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

Here, again, the question arises ; So far as Infallibility is 
implied in these expressions, is it an investment in the Visible 
or in the Spiritual Church 1 I reply ; in the latter, and in no 
other. This alone has never either fatally or materially erred. 
By the very terms of its being, in holding to Christ, the Head, 
it holds everything essential, and nothing essentially opposed, 
to His Truth, The Spiritual Church has often bled in defence 
of the Gospel ; but it has never fallen a traitor in that defence. 
Not so, on the contrary supposition. The Visible Church has 
often and fundamentally erred. Indeed, the doctrine of an 
Infallibility, vested in the Church, when understood in this 
sense, has done little more than stereotype the most destructive 
errors. 

The points, which have now been noticed, have made 
Christian Theology, for ages, one wide field of conflict, simply 
because they have been drawn out of their true connexion, 
and forced into a position, for which they were not designed. 
The conflict about them will never cease till Christ again has 
His own ; till He is acknowledged as the only centre of unity 
in His own spiritual Church ; till His Promises are regarded as 
the heritage of this Church alone : and till men cease to seek 
for Infallibility save in Him and in His own inspired Word. 

III. In the course of these remarks, I have occasionally 
alluded to the fact, that the standards of our Church, and the 
standard writers of our Protestant Keformation, sustain that 
view of the Church, which I have now unfolded. This opens 
a wide field for examination ; and I shall not attempt to ex- 
plore it in its extent. A few citations will be sufficient for the 
object, which I have in view. 

1. In looking, then, at the standards of our own Church, it 
is evidently proper that, while seeking her idea of the true, 
Spiritual Church of Christ, our eyes should be directed to her 
devotional, rather than to her dogmatical, standards ; because, 
in her devotional standards, she bears her part with the whole 
body of spiritual worshippers ; and therefore speaks the 
language of true universality ; — while, in her dogmatical 
standards, she is legislating for her own government and dis- 
cipline, as a separate portion of the Visible Church ; and 



TESTIMONY OF OUR STANDARDS. 77 

therefore speaks for herself only, without claiming to bind 
others, in all things, to her judgments. It is in her worship, 
emphatically, that she appears as the true Catholic. 

(1.) Turn, then, in the first place, to the Collect for "All 
Saints' Day." God is there addressed, as " having knit together 
His Elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical 
Body of His Son, Christ, our Lord :" and we pray for " grace 
so to follow His blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, 
that we may come to those unspeakable joys, which he has 
prepared for those, who unfeignedly love Him, through Jesus 
Christ our Lord." 

Now, this language is strictly evidence in the case before 
us. Our Church is here teaching, as well as praying. She is 
uttering her mind on a great and important subject \ and in 
doing so, she gives a distinct and, we may say, perfect defini- 
tion of the one holy and universal Church. She styles it, 
" God's elect," not disconnected and unorganized, but " knit 
together in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical 
Body of His Son, Christ." This " one communion and fellow- 
ship, knit together in the mystical Body of Christ," is a true 
Church ; or there is no such thing as a Church in Heaven, or 
on earth. Of whom, then, is this Church said to be composed % 

In settling this point, observe you, the Collect is a prayer 
for M All Saints." And who are they % Romish saints alone % 
No. The saints of Episcopal communions exclusively 1 No, 
— but God's saints ; His " blessed saints j" His saints in Patri- 
archal, and Hebrew, and Jewish times ; His saints in the davs 
of Christ, of His Apostles, and of all Christian ages ; His 
saints now and always j His saints here and every where ; 
His saints who are alive in the flesh, and who have become, or 
shall become "spirits of the just made perfect." These, all 
these, and only these, are the members " elect" — the " knit 
together in one communion and fellowship in the mystical 
Body of Christ;" in the one truly united and Holy Church, of 
which Christ is the divinely constituted Head ; and the Collect 
teaches us to pray for " grace, so to follow these in all virtu- 
ous and goodly living, that we may come to those unspeakable 
joys, which God has prepared for those who unfeignedly love 
Him." 



78 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

This last expression is a Biblical exposition of the word, 
"elect," in the opening of the Collect. The "elect" are 
those, who " unfeignedly love God." " All things," says 
St. Paul, " work together for good to them that love God — to 
them that are the called according to His purpose." Here the 
phrase ; " them that love God," and the expression, " the 
called," or elect, " according to his purpose," are synonymous 
and mutually explanatory. So, in the prayer before us, the 
phrase, they who " unfeignedly love God," and the expres- 
sion, His " elect in one communion and fellowship," are iden- 
tical in meaning,- mutually exegetical. The language at 
the close of the Collect, therefore, is equally available, with 
that at the opening and in the middle, for the settlement of 
the question ; who compose this truly united — this one holy 
Church j this " one communion and fellowship in the mystical 
Body of Christ V They are all those " blessed saints," and 
only those who "unfeignedly love God." Dare any man take 
this expression, and extend it, with its kindred terms in the 
Collect, into a description of the visible Church, or of those 
exclusively, who are really holy members in our own and 
kindred Episcopal communions X Let him attempt so strange 
an act, and our Zion herself shall rise up from her knees, from 
the offering of this, her truly Catholic prayer, and forbid such 
deep violence on her words. She is not here describing the 
visible Church ; she is rather teaching us who compose the 
one holy Communion, the really united Church of Christ j and 
is praying if peradventure those, who now constitute her pro- 
fessed members, may also be found included, at last, in that 
great, that divine knitting together of all God's " elect." 

The language of this Collect, it is needless to say, is based 
on some of the very passages in the Bible, which I have ex- 
pounded j and contains a description of the Church perfectly 
identical with the idea which it has been my purpose to exhi- 
bit. Had I explored the whole English language, I could not 
have found terms more suited to my purpose than those here 
furnished ; the precise, luminous teachings of our Zion, as she 
deliberately utters her mind at the footstool of the Throne. 

(2.) Turn next to the prayer at the close of our Communion 



TESTIMONY OF OUR STANDARDS. 79 

Service. We there thank God " that we," " who have duly- 
received the holy mysteries" of the Lord's Supper, who are 
really partakers of Christ by faith, " are also very members 
incorporate in the mystical Body of His Son ; which is the 
blessed company of all faithful people ; and are also heirs, 
through hope, of His everlasting kingdom by the merits of the 
most precious death and passion of His dear Son." To this 
thanksgiving we add a petition for " grace to continue in that 
holy fellowship, and do all such good works as God hath pre- 
pared for us to walk in, through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

This passage expresses precisely the same idea with the 
former, and to it the same remarks may be applied. Our 
Church is here uttering her most solemn teachings as well as 
her most solemn prayers j and, in doing so, she gives a concise, 
but still luminous definition of the one whole and true Church 
of Christ. She styles it " the mystical Body of the Son" of 
God 5 and then, varying her language, she calls it " that holy 
fellowship." In this, too, as in the former instance, the Body 
described is, unquestionably, a Church. The phrase, " mys- 
tical Body of thy Son," has precisely the same meaning with 
that in which St. Paul says, that God gave Christ "to be Head 
over all things to the Church, which is His Body." The term 
" Body," as a metaphor for the Church, has an established 

meaning. 

Of whom, then, according to the teaching of this prayer, 

is the Church composed ! I answer by a simple repetition 

of the words ; " the mystical Body of thy Son, which is the 

blessed company of all faithful people." This latter clause 

is a comment, in the very form of a definition, upon the 

former. The Church here described is expressly declared to 

consist of " the blessed company of all faithful people." The 

style of this language belongs to the age in which our 

Prayer Book was put forth. The phrase, " all faithful people," 

meant then just what we now understand by all true believers. 

A similar antiquity of style occurs earlier in the prayer ; where 

those, who are really partakers of Christ by faith, are said to 

be " very members, incorporate in his mystical Body." The 

meaning is, " true members," true, as opposed to false, or 



80 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

merely formal ; members, not only by " the outward and visi- 
ble sign," but also by " the inward and spiritual" signification j 
members of the Body of Christ by the Spirit's ingrafting. The 
Church described in this prayer, then, is composed of " all true 
believers," and only such. It is not the distracted, but " the 
blessed company" of all the " very members of Christ's mys- 
tical Body." Now, then, who constitute this "Blessed Com- 
pany," this " Holy Fellowship 1" Remember ; our Church, 
when she uses this language, has gone down upon her knees, 
before the visible symbols of the bloody passion of Him, who 
came into our world to " taste death for every man." She 
has gone down upon her knees before the consecrated memo- 
rials of Gethsemane's bloody sweat and of Calvary's bloodier 
cross ; and she has gone down there to thank God for a Savior 
to penitent and believing sinners ! Remember this ; and then 
tell me, has she gone down to that soul-humbling posture, and 
placed herself amidst those heart-melting associations, to bless 
God for salvation through the Episcopacy alone, or to define 
the visible Church, as limited to those, who enjoy even such 
rich blessings as an Episcopal ministry and sacraments 1 To 
suppose this, were to place her under heavy degradation ; and 
she would again rise up from her knees before the sacrament 
of her crucified Lord, and nobly cast the reproach away from 
her. She would say : " I took that lowly posture, and sur- 
rounded myself with those touching remembrancers, the better 
to realize my share in the mercies of Him, who " died, the 
just for the unjust, that He might bring them to God,-" the better 
to realize my fellowship with patriarchs and prophets, with 
apostles and martyrs, and with all the noble company of saints 
in every age, from the morning to the eve of time ; the better 
to realize my own privileges in having contributed many from 
among my own children to that " blessed company of all faith- 
ful people ;" the better to realize a fitting sympathy with my 
once suffering but now rejoicing Lord in every " broken 
spirit," and in every " contrite heart," that comes to Him from 
this poor, dying world, for pardon, peace and life ; the better 
to mingle my tuneful song with that of the redeemed of all 
lands and of every name, "that holy fellowship" of the saved, 



TESTIMONY OF OUR STANDARDS. 81 

whom Jesus is gathering out of time, and preparing to glorify 
in eternity. It was for this that I knelt there, as if at the foot 
of the cross, as if amid the sprinkling of the blood of " the 
Lamb that taketh away the sin of the world." I was seeking 
to identify myself with the great " mystical Body of Christ," 
my living Head ; that Body in which there are no dead mem- 
bers ; the one part of which is already joined with Him in 
heaven, while the other yet walketh with his purifying Spirit 
upon earth. 

Such is the posture, and such the teaching of our Church in 
this most Catholic, this most teaching prayer ; and thus does 
she define the one, unbroken and holy Church of her divine 
Head. I delight to see her in such an attitude, and to hear her 
utter such a teaching. I delight to see her thus lowly, thus 
thrilled with her divine theme, thus covering herself, not with 
the apostolic robes of her most venerable Episcopacy, but with 
that one and ampler robe of salvation through the Crucified, 
which is thrown over the whole of His one "mystical Body;" 
which adorns " the Bride, the Lamb's wife ;" which clothes the 
sacred family living with Him in holy union and concord, 
from the first saint that believed, to the last believer that shall 
be saved. 

Such language as that, which has now been examined, from 
two of the most expressive forms of the Church, cannot be 
considered as describing either the Visible Church, - or the 
Church as limited by the Episcopacy; because the Visible 
Church contains a vast multitude of unconverted, and even of 
most ungodly members ; while the Church, as limited by the 
Episcopacy, does not contain all the true saints, all the really 
holy, whom Christ has gathered out of mankind and into Him- 
self. It is language, fitted for nothing else in the world but a 
faithful and exact description of that Spiritual Church, which 
consists of none but true believers, and which comprises all 
the true believers, who ever have lived, or ever shall live. 

3. I have already said, that the language of the Creed, 

where we profess to believe in " The holy Catholic Church, 

the Communion of Saints," is, by excellent divines, regarded 

as describing the Church, under the very idea of it, which I 

6 



82 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

have presented. The same idea evidently occurs both in the 
Litany, and in the Te Deum ; both which, like the Creed, are 
among the most ancient and accredited of Christian composi- 
tions. They breathe the true spirit of early devotion ; and 
savor strongly of an age, when Christian fellowship, in its 
generous grasp, embraced all who truly " held the Head," 
Christ. Thus, in the Litany, we pray God "to rule and 
govern His holy Church universal in the right way ;" and 
" to give to all His people increase of grace to hear meekly 
His Word, to receive it with pure affection, and to bring forth 
the fruits of the Spirit." Thus, too, in the Te Deum, we hear 
of " the goodly fellowship of the Prophets ;" " The glorious 
company of the Apostles ;" " the noble army of Martyrs ;" 
and finally, (as inclusive of the whole blessed fellowship of 
the saints) " The holy Church throughout all the world," in 
all its revolving ages. " When Thou hadst overcome the sharp- 
ness of death, Thou didst open the kingdom of Heaven to all 
believers." " We therefore pray Thee, help thy servants, 
whom Thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood." " Make 
them to be numbered with thy Saints in glory everlasting." 
" O Lord, save thy people, and bless thine heritage." Here 
is language fitting the mouths of those who worship Christ. 
Here is a copious multiplication of terms, for the expression 
of one single idea ; " all true believers ;" " Thy servants j" 
" Thy saints ;" " Thy people ;" " Thine heritage ;" terms 
which refuse any limit on their meaning, short of that, which 
bounds the fruit of Christ's bloodily redeeming sufferings and 
death ; and all ranged under the one broadly comprehending 
phrase ; " The holy Church throughout all the world." 

Much time might be spent in amplifying these glowingly 
concentrated expressions, in tracing them up to their origin in 
the Bible, and in illustrating their Christ-like Catholicism of 
comprehension. But, I have not space to pursue the pleasing 
theme. I can merely recall the thought, that, thus far, I have 
been citing from the devotional standards of our Church. — 
You have been catching the utterances of her mind, while 
bowing in worship amidst the hosts of the redeemed at the 
feet of the Redeemer j and while erect in praises, amidst the 



TESTIMONY OF OUR STANDARDS. 83 

whole band of those, who shout, " Worthy is the Lamb that 
was slain" and " hath redeemed us to God by His blood, out 
of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation ; and 
hath made us unto God kings and priests ; and we shall reign 
on the earth." You have been listening to Her, therefore, in 
acts, which lift her above all but the loftiest and broadest 
conceptions, and which place her right by the side of Christ, 
as He looks, with divine satisfaction over the whole fruit of 
His sufferings, over the whole " travail of His soul." In her 
worship, she is not controversial, but Christian ; on her knees, 
she defines Christ's Church as it lives in Christ's heart, and not 
as it is ranged within visible lines. 

The testimony of the standard writers of our Protestant Re- 
formation must be reserved for my next Discourse. 



DISCOURSE V. 



f *' Head over all things to the Church : which is His Body, the fulness of Him 
that filleth all in all."— Efhesians i ; 22, 23. 



The question, whether this passage refers to the Church, as 
a body under visible organization, with officers and form of 
government $ or to the Church, as a body, whose organization 
is spiritual only, consisting in the inward union of the members 
with their Head by faith, has already been considered. It will 
not, therefore, be necessary to enter into the inquiry at the 
present time. I will merely remark, that we have seen reason 
to regard the Church, here described, as identical with what 
our Communion service denominates, that "Mystical Body of 
Christ, which is the blessed company of all faithful people ;" 
of all, who truly believe in Christ. This idea of the Church 
we found, in our last discourse, imbodied in several parts of 
our devotional standards ; those venerable forms of worship, 
in which our Church utters her mind, at the foot of the Throne, 
not as a controvertist, but as a portion of that great band of 
worshippers, who present their offerings of prayer and praise 
to one common Father, by faith in the one Savior of them 
all. What I have proposed for the present discourse, is, to 
make a few citations from the standard writers of our own 
Protestant Reformation, for the purpose of showing, that, 
theologically, as well as devotionally, the idea of the Church, 
which I have presented, has the highest of human sanction. 

These standard writers of our Church flourished chiefly in 
two great ages ; that of the Reformation itself, and that of the 



86 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

seventeenth Century. The former, in the sixteenth, was an age 
of much controversy, but of more action. Principles were then 
asserted and defended ; but the main labor of the period lay in 
building up the Reformed Church on the basis of those prin- 
ciples ; and, with blood, cementing it in the true faith of 
Christ. The latter, in the seventeenth Century, may be distin- 
guished as an age of much action, but of more controversy. 
The " good fight of faith," with all its blood and fires, was 
ended ; and the race of those gigantically great men of the 
English Reformation, subsequently raised up, came forth upon 
a comparatively quiet field, to demonstrate, from the Word 
of God, the truth of those principles, which the preceding age 
had laid in the foundation of the Reformed Church. 

Upon the main points, which, in these discourses, I have 
endeavored to establish, the distinction between the Spiritual 
and the Visible Church, and the superior title of the former 
to the name of the Church, the writers of both those ages 
were distinct and full. 

1. In his catechism, the great martyr, Archbishop Cranmer, 
whose blood watered the Church of the English Reformation, 
in explaining " the Apostle's Creed," speaks thus : " I believe 
the holy Catholic Church, that is to say, that there is ever 
found some company of men, or some congregation of good 
people, which believe the gospel and are saved.* * * For, this 
word, Church, signifieth a company of men, lightened with the 
Spirit of Christ, which do receive the Gospel.* * And this 
Christian Church is a Communion of saints ; that is to say — 
all that be of this communion, or company, be holy, and be 
one holy Body under Christ their Head. And this congrega* 
tion receiveth, of their Head and Lord, all spiritual riches and 
gifts, that pertain to the sanctification and making holy of the 
same Body. And these ghostly treasures," or spiritual gifts, 
" be common to the whole Body and to every member of the 
same."* 

Again : " The holy Church is so unknown to the world that 
no man can describe it; but God alone, who searcheth the 
hearts of all men, and knoweth his true children from others." 

* Catechism of 1548. 



STANDARD WRITERS I ABP. CRANMER : BP. RIDLEY. 87 

" This Church is " the pillar of the truth," because it resteth 
on God's Word ;" — " but, as for the open, known Church, and 
the outward face thereof, it is not the pillar of the truth, other- 
wise than it is, as it were, a register, or a treasury to keep the 
books of God's holy will and testament, and to rest only 
thereupon."* 

In these passages, bear in mind, the martyr is interpreting 
the language of the Apostles' Creed, the highest, most author- 
itative standard of our Church. How, then, does he define 
" the holy Catholic Church, the Communion of saints," 
which we there profess to believe 1 Precisely as I have de- 
fined the one true Church of Christ, as the company of those 
who "are saved;" that Body of which Christ is Head; and 
"every member" of which is a partaker of those "ghostly 
treasures," which are the gifts of the Spirit. This Church he 
carefully distinguishes from the visible, or, as he calls it, " the 
open, known Church ;" declaring the former to be, and the 
latter not to be, " the pillar of the truth." This, then, the 
great company of the saved, of those who believe in Christ, 
and are made holy, is the Church, which Cranmer finds in the 
Apostles' Creed, one of the most ancient of all Christian 
symbols. 

2. His brother martyr, the accomplished Bishop Ridley, of 
London, is in full concord with him on this point. 

" The name, Church," says he, " is taken in Scripture, 
sometimes, for the whole multitude of them, which profess the 
name of Christ; of the which they are also named Christians. 
But, as St. Paul saith of the Jew — " He is not a Jew, who is 
one outwardly ; neither yet, all that be of Israel are counted 
of the seed ;" even so, not every one which is a Christian 
outwardly, is a Christian indeed. For, " If any man have not 
the spirit of Christ, the same is none of His." Therefore, that 
Church, which is His Body, of whom Christ is the Head, 
standeth only of living stones, and true Christians, not only 
outwardly in name and title, but inwardly in heart and in 
truth."f 

* Answer to Dr. Smith. f Ridley's Works, 



88 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

Here is the same distinction, as in the former case, between 
the outward and the inward, between the visible and the spir- 
itual Church ; while the latter is expressly said to be " that 
Church,which is His Body, of which Christ is Head, and which 
standeth only of living stones, and true Christians;" or hath 
nothing in it but members, who are joined to Christ by a vital- 
izing and saving faith. 

More to the same effect might be cited ; but I must pass 
from this first, to what may be termed the second age of the 
Reformation. 

3. Among the earliest of the writers of this prolific period, 
stands Richard Hooker, a name in every Churchman's mouth ; 
as humble and holy as he was learned and wise. 

Writing in his great work, the Ecclesiastical Polity, with 
the express purpose of distinguishing the invisible from the 
visible Church, he says : " The Church of Christ, which we 
properly term His Body mystical, can be but one, neither can 
that one be sensibly discerned by any man, inasmuch as the 
parts thereof are some in heaven already with Christ ; and the 
rest that are on earth, albeit their natural persons be visible, 
we do not discern under this property, whereby they are truly 
and infallibly of that body. Only our minds, by intellectual 
conceit, are able to apprehend that such a real body there is ; 
a body collective, because it containeth a huge multitude ; a 
body mystical, because the mystery of their conjunction is 
removed altogether from sense." And now, mark what he 
says of this true " Church of Christ." " Whatsoever we read 
in Scripture, concerning the endless love, and saving mercy, 
which God sheweth towards his Church, the only proper sub- 
ject thereof is this Church ;" that is — this " Body mystical," 
"part whereof is already in heaven with Christ," while the 
other part is still " on earth," being " truly and infallibly of that 
Body," though " the mystery of their conjunction" with Christ 
" is removed altogether from sense." " Concerning this flock 
it is" adds he, " that our Lord and Savior hath promised, ' I 
give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, nei- 
ther shall any pluck them out of my hands.' " 

To this " mystical Church" he says, " belong the everlasting 



HOOKER *. PERKINS. 89 

promises of love, mercy and blessedness." " Unto that Church, 
which is His mystical Body," it is " not possible" that wicked, 
or merely formal members " should belong;" "because that 
Body consisteth of none but only true Israelites, true sons of 
Abraham, true servants and saints of God."* 

Again, in his first sermon on the Epistle of Jude, he says : — - 
" The multitude of them, which truly believe, howsoever they 
be dispersed far and wide, each from other, is all one Body, 
whereof the Head is Christ; one building, whereof He is Corner 
Stone ; in whom they, as the members of the Body, being knit, 
and, as the stones of the building, being coupled, grow up to 
a man of perfect stature, and rise to an holy temple in the 
Lord. That which linketh Christ to us, is, His mere love and 
mercy towards us. That which tieth us to Him, is, our faith 
in the promised salvation revealed in the Word of truth. 
That, which uniteth and joineth us among ourselves, in such 
sort that we are now as if we had but one heart and one soul, 
is, our love."f 

To these and the like beautiful conceptions, and just deline- 
ations of the true mystical Church of Christ, in which Hooker 
abounds, I add nothing, except to say, that every word falls in, 
in perfect accord, with the view, which I have already so largely 
illustrated from the Bible and from our devotional standards. 
Hooker, one of the greatest Biblical divines of England, 
unquestionably taught this view of the one, true, holy and 
Catholic Church of Christ. 

4. Perkins, also, another of that great army of our reformed 
divines, speaks thus : "This union to Christ, maketh the Church 
to be the Church ; and by it, the members thereof, whether 
they be in heaven, or in earth, are distinguished from all other 
companies whatsoever. "J 

He calls " the Catholic Church militant," " The number of 
believers dispersed through the world, who are effectually 
called, and sanctified and preserved unto life everlasting." 
Speaking of " two sorts of men, professing religion," one of 

* Ecclesiastical Polity, Book iii., § 1. p. 269—272. London 1S25. 
f First Sermon on St. Jude, § 11. 
X Perkins' Works, vol. i., p. 277. 



90 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

whom " do unfeignedly believe and are sanctified," while the 
other only " make show of faith, but believe not ;" he says : — 
" Of the former doth the Catholic Church consist, and not of 
the latter ;" these " are no members set into the Head of this 
Body, though they may seem to be." " This Catholic Church 
is invisible, and Cannot, by the eye of sense, be discerned." 
It " cannot utterly perish and be dissolved. All other congre- 
gations and particular Churches, being mixed, may fail ; yet 
this cannot be overcome." " To this assembly, and no other, 
belong all the promises of this life and the life to come. It is 
the ground and pillar of truth ; that is, the doctrine of true 
religion is always safely kept and maintained in it."* 

5. While these passages clearly develop the idea of the 
Church, as I have presented it, and shew that, to this Church 
alone the promises are made, and in it alone the true indefect- 
ibility is found j the following, from Bishop Hall, shews that 
in the same Church resides the divine unity, on which Christ 
so earnestly insists. " If," says he, in his sermon on the 
Beauty and Unity of the Church, "from particular visible 
Churches, you shall turn your eyes to the true, inward, uni- 
versal company of God's elect and secret ones, there shall you 
see more perfectly the ^ne Dove ; for, what the other is in 
profession, this is in truth ; that one baptism is here the true 
laver of regeneration ; that one faith is a saving reposal upon 
Christ ; that one Lord is ' the Savior of His Body.' No natu- 
ral body is more one than this mystical ; one Head rules it ; 
one Spirit animates it ; one set of joints moves it \ one food 
nourishes it ; one robe covers it. So it is one in itself, so one 
with Christ, as Christ is one with the Father."! 

" The whole Church," says he, " is the spiritual Temple of 
God. Every believer is a living stone laid in those sacred 
walls. There is no place for any loose stone in God's edifice j 
the whole Church is one entire Body."f 

6. Bishop Taylor, also, that perhaps richest of Christian 
orators, is full of the doctrine which I have unfolded. In his, 

* Perkins' Works, vol. iii., pp. 482, 504. 

f Sermon on Beauty and Unity of the Church. 

% Treatise of Christ Mystical, chapter yiii., § 2. 



BISHOP HALL : BISHOP TAYLOFv. 91 

Dissuasive from Popery, he thus writes : " They, who are 
indeed holy and obedient to Christ's laws of faith and manners, 
these are truly and perfectly the Church ;" " the Church of 
God in the eyes and heart of God. For the Church of God 
are the Body of Christ ; but the mere profession of Christian- 
ity makes no man a member of Christ ; nothing but a new 
creature, nothing but a ' faith working by love ;' and keeping 
the commandments of God." " Hypocrites are not Christ's 
servants, and therefore not Christ's members, and therefore no 
part of the Church of God ; but improperly and equivocally, 
as a dead man is a man ; all which is perfectly summed up in 
these words of St. Augustine, saying that " The Body of Christ 
is not (bipartitum, it is not) a double Body, all that are Christ's 
Body shall reign with Christ forever." " If by a Church we 
mean that society, which is really joined to Christ ; which hath 
received the Holy Ghost ; which is heir of the promises and of 
the good things of God ; which is the Body of which Christ is 
the Head ; then the invisible part of the visible Church — that 
is, the true servants of Christ are the Church ; that is, to them 
only appertain the Spirit and the truth, the promises and the 
graces, the privileges and advantages of the Gospel." " The 
faithful only and obedient are beloved of God. Others may 
believe rightlv," (in speculation,) "but so do the devils, who 
are no parts of the Church ;" " and it will be a strange proposi- 
tion, which affirms any one to be of the Church, for no other 
reason but such as qualifies the Devil to be so." " Those who 
are condemned by Christ," (continues St. Augustine,) " for their 
evil and polluted consciences, are not in Christ's Body, which 
is the Church, for Christ hath no damned members." " Although 
when we speak of all the acts and duties, of the judgments and 
nomenclatures, of outward appearances and accounts of law, 
we call the mixed society by the name of the Church ; yet, 
when we consider it in the true, proper, and primary meaning, 
all the promises of God, the Spirit of God, the life of God, and 
all the good things of God are peculiar to the Church of God 
in God's sense, in the way in which he owns it , that is, as it 
is holy, united unto Christ, like to Him, and partaker of the 
divine nature. The other are but a heap of men keeping good 



92 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

company, and calling themselves by a good name, managing 
the external parts of union and ministry ; but, because they 
otherwise belong not to God, the promises no otherwise belong 
to them, but as they may, and when they do, return to God. 
Here, then are two senses of the word, Church ; God's sense, 
and man's sense ; the sense of religion, and the sense of gov- 
ernment ; common rites, and spiritual union."* 

Much more to the same effect, might be cited from this exu- 
berant author ; but I hasten to draw a little from other stores. 

7. Archbishop Usher, one of the greatest lights of his age, 
in his Body of divinity, puts this question : " What is meant" 
(in the Creed) "by the Catholic Church V and then answers; 
" That whole, universal company of the elect, that ever were, 
are, or shall be, gathered together in one body, knit together 
in one faith, under one Head, Jesus Christ. For God, in all 
places, and of all sorts of men, had from the beginning, hath 
now, and ever will have, an holy Church, which is therefore 
called " the Catholic Church 5" that is, God's whole, or uni- 
versal assembly, because it comprehendeth the multitude of all 
those that have, do, or shall believe unto the world's end." 

Again, in the same work, he asks j " Who are the true 
members of the Church militant on earth 1" and answers ; 
" Those alone, who, as living members of the mystical Body, 
are, by the Spirit and faith, secretly and inseparably conjoined 
unto Christ, their Head; in which respect, the true militant 
Church is both invincible and invisible."! 

" The Communion of Saints," he says, in his Sermon be- 
fore the House of Commons, " consists in the union, which we 
all have with one Head. For Christ, our Head, is the main 
foundation of this heavenly union."J 

It is needless to point out the exact coincidence of all this 
with what has been advanced in my previous discourses.. 
Usher belongs to that grand Protestant host, who make the 
true Church to consist of every true believer, who is gathered 
into Christ and saved, from the beginning to the End of Time* 

* Dissuasive from Popery, Part ii., B. I., Sect, i. } §§ i. and ii. 

j Bod. Div. 187,189. 

£ Sermon before the House of Commons. 



usher: jackson : barrow. 93 

8. Jackson also, eminent among the eminent, must be cited 
as belonging to the same ranks. Speaking in his celebrated 
Treatise of the Church, " which is truly holy and Catholic," 
He says: " This Church is a true and real body, consisting of 
many parts, all really, though mystically and spiritually united 
unto one Head; and, by their real union with one Head, are 
all truly and really united amongst themselves." " That this 
Church is a true Body, the Apostle"— hath left registered ; 
" I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is 
behind of the affliction of Christ in my flesh, for His Body's 
sake, which is the Church." " Every one, then, is so far, a 
member of Christ's Church as he is a member of Christ's Body. 
He that is not, in some sort, a member of Christ's Body, can 
be, in no sort, a member of His Church. He that is a true, 
live member of the One, is a true live member of the other. 
He that is but an equivocal, analogical, hypocritical, or painted 
member of the one, is but an equivocal, analogical, hypocriti- 
cal, or painted member of the other."* 

Arguing in the same work, from a passage in Ephesians 
which I have already explained, he writes ; " Every member 
of the Church or of Christ's Body is more near, or dear unto 
Him than our flesh is unto us; and more His own than our 
flesh is ours."f 

Again, uttering himself in a strict definition, he says : 
" The Catholic Chnrch, in the prime sense, consists only of 
such as are actual and indissoluble members of Christ's mysti- 
cal Body ; or, of such as have the Catholic faith not only 
sown in their brains, or understanding, but thoroughly rooted 
in their hearts.''^ 

9. With this definition perfectly agrees that of the great 
Dr. Barrow, the champion of the Church of England against 
the Papal Supremacy. In his discourse on the Unity of the 
Church, he srjs ; the Invisible Church is "The whole body 
of God's people, that is, ever hath been, or ever shall be, from 
the beginning of the world to the consummation thereof, who, 

* Treatise on the Holy Catholic Faith and Church, pp. 18, 19. Phil. 1844. 
f Treatise, etc., p. 21. 
$ Treatise, etc., p. 152. 



94 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

having believed in Christ, and sincerely obeyed God's laws, 
shall finally, by the meritorious performances and sufferings of 
Christ, be saved."* 

" To this Invisible Church, composed only of such as shall 
finally be saved, belong," he says, " all the glorious titles and 
excellent privileges attributed to the Church in holy Scripture. 
This is 'the Body of Christ ;' 'the Spouse of Christ;' 'the 
House of God built on a Eock, against which the gates of Hell 
shall not prevail;' 'the elect generation.'" "This is that 
one Body, into which we are all baptized by one Spirit ; the 
members whereof do hold a mutual sympathy and compla- 
cence ; which is joined to one Head, deriving sense and mo- 
tion from it ; which is enlivened and moved by one Spirit." 
" To this Church belongs peculiarly that unity, which is so 
often attributed to the Church." " This is the Society, for 
whom Christ did pray that they all might be one."f 

"All Christians are united by spiritual cognation and alli- 
ance, as being all regenerated by the same incorruptible seed; 
being alike born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor 
of the will of man, but of God ; whence, as the Sons of God 
and brethren of Christ, they become brethren one to another." 
" The whole Christian Church is one by its incorporation into 
the mystical Body of Christ, or as fellow-subjects of that 
spiritual, heavenly kingdom, whereof Christ is the sovereign 
Head and Governor ; whence they are governed by the same 
laws, obliged by the same institutions and functions, partake 
of the same privileges, are entitled to the same promises, and 
encouraged by the same rewards. So they make but one 
spiritual Corporation, or Republic, whereof Christ is the 
Sovereign Lord."{ 

10. And finally, without further addition to this catalogue 
of witnesses ; "the Incomparable pen " of Bishop Sanderson 
gives this, as the first and most important of four senses, in 
which the word, Church, is used : " The whole company of 
God's elect, actually made members of Christ by virtue of an 

* Discourse on Unity of the Church. 

f Oxford edition of his Works, vol. vi. ? pp. 497 — 499, 

% Ibid. p. 597. 



BP. SANDERSON I TRUE USE OF THESE WITNESSES. 95 

inward effectual calling to faith and godliness. This we 
commonly call the Invisible Church, or the Church of God's 
elect."* 

You have now looked at a few of the many citations, which 
might be made from that noble host of great Christians and 
great divines, who adorned the two principal periods of our 
English Protestant Reformation. I have not thought best to 
interrupt the chain by prolonged comments of my own ; I leave 
them simply as they stand, to tell their own story, and to give 
in their own witness. They touch, sustainingly, every point, 
which I have made in my argument ; and, in such a way as 
to show that the ages, to which they belong, were exceedingly 
familiar with the views, which they exhibit ; and that they 
were considered as presenting cardinal points in the pure Pro- 
testant faith, which was then established and defended as well 
with the blood of saints, as with the pen of knowledge. The 
seventeenth Century, doubtless, witnessed the maintenance of 
opposite opinions in England ; but, they were mostly the opin- 
ions of what have been termed the " Non-jurors ;" a name given 
to those who were adherents of the deposed, because Romanizing 
James II., and who could not honestly take the oath of alle- 
giance to his Protestant successors, William and Mary; opinions, 
therefore, suspected in their very source, and weighing nothing, 
with true Protestant minds, against those of Cranmer and 
Ridley, of Hooker and Perkins, of Hall and Taylor, of Usher 
and Jackson, of Barrow and Sanderson ; to say nothing of the 
multitude of others, true and loyal children of the Reforma- 
tion, who marched by their side, or followed in their train. 

Let me not, however, be misunderstood in the citations 
which I have made. It is, indeed, pleasant to rind oneself in 
company which he likes. But, the true Christian teacher, 
provided he be sure of having Christ and His Word on his side, 
might well be content to march alone, with innumerable hosts 
of combatants arrayed against him. I have made the foregoing 
citations, not because they are the infallible authorities, on 
which the argument for the true Church is founded, but, be- 

* Discourse concerning the visibility of the true Church. Hooker's Collection, 
p. 213. Phil, 1844. 



96 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

cause they are trusty and credible witnesses to show that this 
argument is no novelty ; that I have not been broaching new 
and rash speculations of my own ; but that I have been moving 
in the track of some of the soundest and holiest minds of one 
of the soundest and purest Churches of Christendom. There 
are those, who make Tradition a sort of infallible authority in 
matters of faith and doctrine ; and who hold this authority to 
be a necessary interpreter of the Word of the living God. 
They set up this Tradition as an infallible Judge on the theo- 
logical bench, and bow to its oracular decisions with an im- 
plicit faith. But, such is not the rank, which we have been 
taught to assign this speaker. We place it, not as Judge on 
the bench, but as evidence on the witnesses' stand ; and we 
receive its statements only so far as they are harmonious with 
the only infallible rule of faith and doctrine — the everlasting 
Word of Truth. 

Look back, then, and question carefully the witnesses whom 
I have called. Do they speak according to this Word % If so, 
give them your credence, not because they can add any thing 
of certainty to that Word, but because they are the unim- 
peached sons of that Church to which, as Episcopalians, we 
belong, and because they speak according " to the Law and 
the Testimony" which the Holy Spirit hath penned, and 
which secure to us the priceless heritage of the one true 
Savior " of all faithful people" — of all holy believers. 



PART II 



THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 



DISCOURSE VI. 



" As God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, 
so let him walk ; and so ordain I in all the Churches." — I Cor. via ; 17. 



The Church, as it is, in the truest and highest sense, one. 
Catholic, or Universal, has already occupied us through a 
series of discourses. On the authority of the Bible, and on 
the testimony of our own Standards, and of the standard 
writers of our own Protestant Reformation, we have seen it, 
in this sense, composed of " all faithful people ;" of all true 
believers ; of all, who, by a living faith, " hold the Head" of 
the Body, which is Christ 5 and who, by the Holy Ghost, are, 
in that faith, sanctified and saved. This is " The Church of 
the First-born, which are written in heaven" even while so- 
journing on earth 5 and which, in the present life, do " come 
to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made 
perfect, and to Jesus, the Mediator of the new Covenant, and 
to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that 
of Abel." To this Church, made up of saints alive, and of 
the spirits of the just made perfect ; whose Mediator and 
High Priest is Christ, and whose cleansing is in the precious 
blood of sprinkling ; all true believers " come " the moment 
they are true believers ; they wait not longer for membership 
in it, but enter then into its holy oneness, its great communion, 
its divine Catholicism. This is the Church, in what I have 
termed the true, spiritual sense ,* or, what old writers call 
" The Invisible Church," because the bond of membership, 
which unites the believer to Christ, is invisible. 

But, I have already said ; there is a sense, in which Christ's 



100 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

Church is Visible. I now add ; there is a sense, in which 
this Visible Church is Catholic, or Universal ; and the question, 
upon which I propose to enter, is this ; what is this visi- 
bly Catholic, or Universal Church % Or whom does it com- 
prehend 1 The true Comprehension of this Visible Church is 
the theme now before us. 

I am not unaware, either of the difficulties, by which this 
part of the subject is beset, or of the strong repugnance, which, 
in certain quarters, is felt to some of the views now to be pre- 
sented. Still, as I consider them to rest on the authority of 
the Bible, and to be supported by the testimony of our own 
Standards, and standard writers, I shall present them with a 
consciousness of fidelity to the vows, which are on me ; and 
shall hope, ere I close, to satisfy all, who will read with candor 
and with patience, if not of the demonstrable truth of my 
positions, at least of their credible claim to the character of 
sound, Protestant Episcopacy. 

I begin, then, by distinctly acknowledging, that the view, 
which we take of what is essential to the existence of the 
Church in its spiritual Catholicism, necessarily governs the 
view, which we take of what is comprehended in the Church, 
in its visible Catholicism. In other words, the view which 
we take of the one, true, Spiritual Church of Christ, naturally 
determines the view, which we are to take of the Church, as a 
visible, organized Body. 

All true Christians hold, as most vital, that there are such 
realities as the gift of the Spirit, union with Christ, and the 
pardon of sin. These realities make up the infinitely rich 
legacy of God to man. Without them, there can be neither 
Church, nor Christianity. The difference among Christians 
lies, not in admitting, or denying these divine verities, but, in 
settling the question, how they are to be realized, or received, 
by the disciples of Christ. To recur, then, to the second and 
third definitions of the Church, which I gave in opening this 
whole subject ; if, on the one hand, we hold that an Episco- 
pally constituted ministry is essential to the very being of 
the Church ; indispensably necessary, as " a ministerial inter- 
vention" between God and man, for the communication, or 



VISIBLE CHURCH. 101 

conveyance, of the gift of the Spirit, union with Christ, and 
the pardon of sin ; then, it will necessarily follow, that the 
Church, as visibly Catholic, can comprehend none but those 
who are in subjection to an Episcopal ministry; because 
through this ministry alone the gifts requisite to salvation are 
received. Then the Visible Church and the Episcopally or- 
ganized Body are necessarily identical ; mutually bounding 
each other, and excluding all besides. But if, on the other 
hand, we hold, that the gift of the Spirit, union with Christ, 
and the pardon of sin, are direct bestowments from God upon 
the individual soul, received by faith, without any other ne- 
cessary intervention than that of divinely inspired Truth ; 
then it will unavoidably follow, that the Church, as visibly 
Catholic, comprehends all those Christian organizations through- 
out the world, and under whatever form of ministry, in which 
Christ is truty confessed, his Gospel truly held, and his Sacra- 
ments, really administered ; and within which God vouchsafes 
the gift of His Spirit, union with Christ, and the pardon of 
sin. All such Christian organizations will belong to the 
Visible Catholic Church, not because all their members are 
partakers of these unspeakable benefits, but because, among 
them, the partakers of these benefits are imbodied in outward, 
visible form. The real partakers of these benefits, as we have 
seen, constitute, alone, the one true Spiritual Church, by vir- 
tue of their union with Christ, through the Spirit. The 
Church, in that sense, is nothing else than the whole Body of 
members thus spiritually united with their Divine Head. 
Wherever, then, these members are imbodied in an outward, 
visible organization, with a true confession of Christ, a true 
profession of His Gospel, and a common union in His Sacra- 
ments, there, according to this view, will be a portion of the 
Visible Catholic Church 5 the main difference between the true 
Spir.tual Church and the Church visible or organized, con- 
sisting in this ; that the former is the Church as God seeth it ; 
while the latter is the Church as man sees it. The organiza- 
tion itself of the Visible Church is certainly a divine provision, 
or arrangement ; but, from its very nature, and the condition 
of man, the application of that provision to human society 



102 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

results in this difference between the Spiritual and the Visible 
Church ; that the former hath none but true and living mem- 
bers ; while the latter hath many false and dead members. 

Which, then, of the two views, thus re-introduced, are we 
to adopt 1 To which do the Bible and our own Church lend 
their testimony % I can only answer for one, as a student of 
the Bible and of the teachings of our Church, that they seem 
to me to lead decidedly to the adoption of the latter view. 

1. As bearing on this point, I cannot think it insignificant, 
that, when the Bible speaks of the true, universal, and holy 
Church of Christ, it speaks of it as one, without reference to 
times, places, or outward peculiarities ; and in the most uni- 
versal and unqualified terms, as all holy and all in Christ j but, 
that, when it speaks of the Church as a visible organization, it 
often speaks of it as many, as bounded by times and places, and 
as subject to all the diversities, mutations, and imperfections, 
w T hich grow out of man's mixed and sinful state. 

The texts, which I have examined in the former part of this 
series, will illustrate what I mean by the former part of this 
remark. In those passages, the Bible speaks of the Church as 
the " One fold under the One Shepherd ;" " the whole family, 
which is named in heaven and earth ;" " The Bride, the 
Lamb's wife ;" the " One Body" of Christ ; the " Holy Tem- 
ple in the Lord," into which all, who are builded upon Christ 
by faith, do " grow." This is what Christ calls, " My 
Church," which He buildeth on Himself: " The Church," to 
w T hich " the Lord daily added the saved 5" "the Church, 
which is His Body ; the fullness of Him that filleth all in all j" 
" The Church in Christ Jesus," in which God is to be glorified 
" throughout all ages j" " The Church" which Christ " loved," 
and for which He " gave Himself;" " The Church of the 
living God, the pillar and ground of the Truth ;" " The 
Church," whose members are all Christ's " brethren ;" and 
" the General Assembly and Church of the First-born, which are 
written in Heaven." All this language, it will be remembered, 
is not only thus absolute, and perfectly unrestricted to time, 
place, and outward peculiarity, but constantly intermingled 
with the ascription, to all the members of the Church in this 



THE SPIRITUAL, ONE j THE VISIBLE, MANY. 103 

sense, of life, and growth, and holiness, and the certain inhe- 
ritance of eternal glory. 

What I mean by the latter part of the remark, which I am 
now illustrating, will appear from such passages as that pre- 
fixed to the present discourse : " So ordain I in all the 
Churches." Let us collect a few of the passages, in which 
the Church, as visible and organized, is evidently intended. 

" Then had the Churches rest throughout all Judea." " If 
any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, 
neither the Churches of God." " Let your women keep silence 
in the Churches." " s As I have given order to the Churches of 
Galatia." "The Churches of Asia salute you." " Chosen of 
the Churches to travel with us." "Messengers of the Churches." 
" That, which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the 
Churches." " John, to the Seven Churches in Asia." " There 
was a great persecution against the Church, which was at Jeru- 
salem." " When they had ordained them elders in every 
Church." "The Church at Babylon, elected together with 
you, saluteth you." " I wrote unto the Church ; but Dio- 
trephes, w T ho loveth to have the pre-eminence among them, 
receiveth us not." "The Church that was at Antioch." "If, 
then, ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set 
them to judge, who are least esteemed in the Church. I speak 
to your shame." " Cause that this Epistle be read in the 
Church of the Laodiceans." " In eating, every one taketh 
before other his own supper ; and one is hungry, and another 
is drunken. What ! have ye not houses to eat and to drink 
in 1 Or, despise ye the Church of God, and shame them that 
have not?." "Unto the Angel of the Church in Sardis, 
write : — I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou 
livest, and art dead." And, " unto the Church of the Laodi- 
ceans, write ; — I know thy works, that thou art neither cold 
nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. So then, because 
thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue 
thee out of my mouth."* 

* Acts ix ; 31.— I Cor. xi ; 16.— xiv ; 34.— xvi ; i.— xri ; 19.— II Cor. viii ; 19, 23. 
xi; 28.— Rev. i; 4.— Acts viii ; 1.— xiv ; 23.— I Pet.v; 13.— IHJohn 9.— Acts 
xiii; 1.— I Cor. vi; 4, 5.— Col.iv;16.— I Cor. xi;21,22.— Rev. iii ; 1.— iiij 14-16. 



104 THE CHUKCH UNIVERSAL. 

In reading these, and a multitude of similar passages, we 
find ourselves in a very different atmosphere from that which- 
surrounded us while reading those before quoted. Here all 
that is absolute, universal, and general in the language is drop- 
ped j and ever}- thing becomes conditioned, limited, and par- 
ticular. Here, we are no longer in the Church as it exists in 
Christ, — all calm, and peaceful, and holy, and full of fore- 
tastes, and of the likeness of Heaven ; we are clearly in the 
Church as it comes out into mixture and conflict among men ; 
an impure and imperfect, an unresting and disordered, a 
changing and suffering Body. Here, we find the Church not 
only as one, but also as many; a Church at rest, and in per- 
secution ; bounded by times and places ; modified by " cus- 
tom" and "order;" choosing and sending "messengers;" 
writing and reading, delivering and receiving Epistles ; " or- 
daining Elders," and dispensing sacraments ; doing all things 
as mixed human bodies are wont to do ; and, withal, affected 
by the doing of them too much as such bodies usually are 
affected ; having judgments, or law proceedings, about the 
things of this life ; troubled with ambitions and contentions ; 
abusing the most sacred of rites to purposes of gluttony and 
drunkenness ; having sometimes a name to live while really 
dead ; frequently engaged in things beautiful and commenda- 
ble, and not always clear of those, for which they were to be 
shamed, and on account of which Christ put them loathingly 
away from Himself! 

Now, though all this does not shew us what the Church as 
visibly Catholic, comprehends, yet it does shew us how very 
different a thing it is from the Church as one, and spiritual, 
and holy ; as a " Communion of Saints." And it gives us a 
kind of starting-point in our inquiries ; and shews us, in not a 
few respects, what we are to look for in the Church as visibly 
Catholic, or Universal; that we may expect to find it existing, 
in many places and under separate, independent organizations ; 
divided and corrupted ; exposed, in parts, to extinguishment, 
and even liable to be utterly rejected of God. 

2. Perhaps we may get along, a little further, in our in- 
quiries by looking at a somewhat different class of passages: — 



THE NET ! THE FIELD. 105 

those, which speak of the Church as a " kingdom." I cannot 
refer to all these passages ; for they are very numerous ; I will, 
therefore, select two, most to my purpose. 

In one place, Christ compares " the Kingdom of Heaven " 
to " a Net cast into the sea, and gathering of every kind ; 
which, when full, they drew to the shore ; saving the good in 
vessels, but casting the bad away."* The Net, here, is evi- 
dently the visible Church Catholic, with its organization under 
ministry, and worship, and sacraments. The sea, into which 
the Net is cast, is, this whole world, bounded by the shores of 
time. The " every kind," gathered by the Net, are the 
countless multitude of souls, of all names, characters, and con- 
ditions, the precious and vile, which the Visible Church 
Catholic gathers within its wide-sweeping organizations. And 
" the shore," to which the Net is drawn for the grand separa- 
ting process, is the limit, at which time borders this world by 
eternity, and casts up its millions into the judgment ; drawing 
the true, Spiritual Church at length, out of the Visible, shew- 
ing their everlasting difference, and making the former perfect 
in glory. 

In another place, Christ compares this same M Kingdom of 
Heaven to a man that sowed good seed in his field:" adding; 
" But, while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares 
among the wheat, and went his way." The wheat and the 
tares sprang up and grew confusedly together, until the harvest : 
but then, the reapers gathered the tares into bundles for the 
burning; but the wheat, into the master's barn.f 

This parable is remarkable for exhibiting the true Spiritual 
Church, and the Church visible, both in their separateness and 
in their commixture. " The good seed are the children of the 
kingdom," and they alone. None others belong to the true 
Church. " The tares are children of the Wicked One," and 
constitute no part of that Church. And yet, they are sown 
and growing in the kingdom, in the Church visible. The 
Spiritual and the Visible Church are therefore separate and 
yet commingled. They co-exist ; yet are not the same. The 

* Matt, xiii ; 47, 4S. t Matt, xiii ; 24—43. 



106 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

other parts of the parable are explained to our hand. " The 
Field is the world," this whole earth, as the harvest ground, 
from which the Visible Church is to gather its vast and mingled 
multitudes of unspeakably different characters and names. — 
" The Harvest is the end of the world j" the great day of judg- 
ment and of separation. " The Reapers are the Angels ;" and 
the severance, which they work, is the result of the judgment 
in the perdition of the wicked, and in the " shining forth of 
the righteous, as the Sun, in the Kingdom of their Father." 

Now, both these parabolic views of the Visible Church 
Catholic shew that the Church, in this sense, comprehends ally 
of every name and character, whom the outward angencies of 
the true Gospel gather out of the great sea of time, and the 
wide field of the world. The Church, in this sense, is a most 
mixed, as well as most multitudinous Body ; and the parables 
evidently require us to comprehend in it the whole mighty 
mass surnamed of Christ and living under his true Gospel and 
its institutes, from side to side of the earth, and from begin- 
ning to end of the Church's dispensation ! They leave out 
none, among whom the real children of the kingdom are thus 
visibly organized. 

3. We shall bring our subject into new light, if we look a 
moment at the definition, which makes the Episcopacy essen- 
tial to the very being of the Visible Church. This definition 
rests on the theory that this Episcopacy is a necessary minis- 
terial intervention between God and man for the conveyance 
of the gift of the Spirit, union with Christ, and the pardon of 
sin. Now, the thoroughly unscriptural character of this theory 
is, to my mind, settled by this one consideration ; that it vir- 
tually puts two mediators between God and his creatures j 
while the Bible puts but one. The Bible says ; — " There is 
but one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the 
man Christ Jesus."* And when it says ; " there is one Medi- 
ator between God and men," it means, that there is but one j 
as necessarily as, when it says " there is one God," it means, 
that there is but one. We may as well contend, against this 

•I Tim.ii: 5. 



FALSE VIEW OF ESSENTIALS. 107 

text, that there are two Gods, in any sense, as to say that 
there are, in any sense, two Mediators. But this, the theory 
in question, does say : — First, it puts, between men and God, 
the -one Mediator, Christ Jesus j and then it puts, between 
men and Christ Jesus, its second Mediator, a mediating priest- 
hood, as a necessary intervention, without which there is no 
authorized way for the conveyance of the gift of the Spirit, 
union with Christ, and the pardon of sin. It does not call 
this priesthood, or the individual, who officiates therein, a 
Mediator, in the same sense, in which Christ is the Mediator; 
but, it does consider this priesthood, or the individual, who 
officiates therein, as a Mediation ; offering, for the purpose of 
conveying, the same sacrifice with Christ ; and constituting 
the only authorized way of dispensing the inestimable bless- 
ings, which that sacrifice has purchased. If the theory admit 
that these blessings are ever received without this secondary 
mediation, it still holds that, without this secondary mediation, 
men have no right to look for those blessings ; that to such 
those blessings come — not by covenant, but without covenant ; 
that they are, in fact, " uncovenanted mercies," such as, per- 
haps, the heathen may experience. 

Probably this is one of the most unscriptural and one of the 
most dangerous tenets, ever held ; and we might spend hours 
in shewing how the Bible every where confutes it, and how 
history every where exposes its perilousness. We might shew 
how the Bible continually holds up Christ alone, as the only 
a Days-man," between God and his creatures, that needs to 
" lay His hand upon both ;" how it as continually invites 
every poor, distressed, and broken-hearted sinner to come im- 
mediately and directly to this Christ, even if it be in the soli- 
tude of the heart, of the closet, or of the desert ; and how it 
calls every man, by faith, to bow his head under that pardon- 
ing and spirit-giving hand, which this true Mediator raises and 
stretches man-ward, while with the other He reaches and 
touches God-ward ; so that, thus, the true connecting links 
being joined, the life and all the communicable fullness of the 
Infinite Father, through the Infinite Son, may descend and 



108 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

abide upon the believing child : they alone, with none and 
nothing between them. And then, we might shew how history 
repeatedly reveals the perilousness of interposing a mediating 
priesthood between the sinner and the Savior, as a necessary, 
or the only authorized channel of grace ; how this awfully 
arrogated power has been most awfully abused ; and how, in 
the hands of such a creature as man, it can never fail to be 
abused to some of the worst of purposes. We might go into 
all the details of this great branch of our subject. But it is 
not necessary to my purpose. A glance at it is enough. The 
Bible is against this theory. This theory erects, as necessary 
to the being of the Visible Church, an intervention, which the 
Bible does not necessitate ; which, in the prerogatives claimed 
for it, the Bible sweeps clean away. The Visible Church 
Catholic, therefore, cannot be limited by this theory. All, 
that is necessary to constitute the being of the Church Spi- 
ritual — the gift of the Spirit, union with Christ, and pardon of 
sin — may be obtained, is obtained, without such an intervention 
as this theory supposes. And wherever the Church Spiritual 
is present and imbodies itself under the outward forms and or- 
dinances of the Gospel of Christ, there a portion of the Visible 
Church Catholic is present also ; though it may exist under 
many disadvantages, and with the loss of many things, in 
which its well-being might reasonably rejoice. 

We are now prepared for some more definite account of the 
Visible Church Catholic in its true comprehension. It may, 
then, be described as comprehending the whole visible com- 
pany on earth of those, who profess faith in Christ, maintain 
the preaching of his Gospel, are united by the common bond 
of His sacraments, and are infected with no heresy, subversive 
of the true Christian faith. 

The mercy of a Savior, the mission of the Spirit, and the 
messages of the inspired Word of God, have been given for 
the great end of saving the souls of men from sin and eternal 
death. These infinite blessings have been operating in the 
world from the early ages ; and the whole sum of their effects, 
in any age, the whole company of the saved, when outwardly 



VISIBLE CHURCH DEFINED. 109 

imbodied, constitutes the Visible Church Catholic of that age. 
This Church is that whole company of the saved coming out 
into visibility under the forms necessary to their outward 
manifestation ; and these forms are, the preaching of the true 
Gospel, the profession of the true faith, and a common union 
in the sacraments, which Christ has ordained. These ire the 
chief things, in which their visibility, as a Church, must be 
made manifest. Their persons may be made visible by flesh 
and blood ; but their Church character cannot truly be made 
visible without these necessary forms. It must be borne in 
mind, however, that, in thus coming out into visibility, the 
Church is no longer the one, pure, and holy Church of Christ, 
but an immense congregation of outward professors of Christ, 
mixed, imperfect, and more or less defiled with error, worldli- 
ness, and sin. It is the " net," filled with " every kind," the 
" good and the bad ;" it is the " kingdom," thick sown and 
growing both with " wheat" and with " tares." 

Viewed in this light, no one visible organization can, by 
itself, and to the exclusion of all others, be called the Church 
of Christ, or the Catholic Church. The Church of Rome is 
not the Catholic Church ; nor is that of Greece, or that of 
England, or all these together, the Catholic Church. This 
term, as we now seek its comprehension, covers the whole 
visible company of Christ's professed followers on earth, so far 
as they hold the true faith, and are united by the common bond 
of Christ's sacraments. The very signification of the word, 
Catholic, points to this comprehension of the Visible Church. 
It means, " the whole 5" not any part, or parts. It signifies 
u Universal," not particular ; and it is unwarrantable assump- 
tion in any one organization, or in any number of members, 
short of " the whole," to call itself, or themselves, " the 
Catholic Church." This comprehends the whole universal 
company of Christ's professed followers, holding to Him as 
Head, to His Truth, in the main, uncorrupt, and to His sacra- 
ments, in all things necessary to their being. 

This is the doctrine of our nineteenth Article, when rightly 
understood. " The Visible Church is a congregation of faithful 



110 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

men, in which the pure word of God is preached, and the 
sacraments be duly administered according to Christ's ordi- 
nance, in all things that of necessity are requisite to the 
same." Here are taught two things : 1. The Church, " a con- 
gregation of faithful men ;" not any local congregation, but 
the whole company of true believers in the world ; 2. The 
visibility of this Church, evinced in " the preaching of the 
pure word of God, and in " the due administration of the 
sacraments, according to Christ's ordinance, in all things neces- 
sarily requisite to the same." As the great, universal com- 
pany " of faithful men," or true believers, in all the world, it 
is the one, true, spiritual Church of Christ. But as organized 
under "the preaching of the pure Word of God, and the due 
administration of the sacraments," it is the Visible Church 
Catholic ; mixed, imperfect, divided, and much denied with 
errors, more or less serious. 

That our Article intends to give the Visible Church Catholic 
this comprehension, is evident from the fact, that it says no- 
thing of what constitutes the essence of the ministry, or of 
what it is, that " of necessity, is requisite to the due adminis- 
tration of the sacraments, according to Christ's ordinance." 
It leaves both these points at large, and undetermined ; and I 
suppose it is hazarding nothing to assert, that it would be im- 
possible to get our Church to say, through her authoritative 
Councils, that there can be no Christian ministry at all, unless 
Episcopally constituted ; and no Christian sacraments at all, 
unless Episcopally administered. In the preface to her ordi- 
nation service, she says that there is, and since " the Apostles' 
times," ever has been, an Episcopal ministry \ and, of course, 
sacraments Episcopally administered. But, even there, she says 
not, that there can be no such thing as a Christian ministry, or 
Christian sacraments, without the Episcopacy. She hath never 
promulged such a decision ; and I hesitate not to repeat, she 
cannot be made to pass, authoritatively, such a sentence. She 
proclaims herself a true Church ; and she leaves others to the 
liberty of proclaiming the same for themselves j and, if they 
can, of proving what they proclaim. 



XIXTH ARTICLE : ORDINAL. Hi 

In my next discourse, I propose to shew that the view, now 
taken of the Visible Church Catholic, is still more largely sus- 
tained by the Standards and the standard writers of our Com- 
munion. For the present, it must suffice to have introduced 
this branch of the subject; and now to ask, upon what has 
been said, God's rich and abundant blessing. May the large 
and liberal spirit of our Zion rest, in its fullness, on every son, 
whom she numbers among her children. 



DISCOURSE VII 



** So were the Churches established in the faith." — Acts xvi : 5 



The Christian faith is exactly comprehensive of the Chris- 
tian Church. The former is the true boundary of the latter. 
When this faith, true and sound, is received into the heart, 
producing a holy and living union with Christ, it constitutes a 
member of the true, Spiritual, or Invisible Church Catholic. 
And when this faith, in the main whole and uncorrupt, is car- 
tied out into profession, under the appropriate forms, it consti- 
tutes a member of the real Visible Church Catholic. And so, 
in both senses, the Christian faith is the only true comprehen- 
sion of the Christian Church. This faith, or the substance of 
what Christ requires to be believed, is the grand, all-essential 
thing in this inquiry. A renunciation of this is, to all intents 
and purposes, a renunciation of the Church. Hence, near the 
close of my last discourse, in describing the Church in its ex- 
ternal Catholicism, it was represented as comprehending the 
whole visible company on earth, of those who profess faith in 
Christ, maintain the preaching of His Gospel, are united by 
the common bond of His sacraments, and are infected with 
no heresy subversive of the true Christian faith. This last 
mark was added, because a heresy, which really subverts the 
true and whole Christian faith, may well be considered as 
effecting a severance from the Visible Christian Church. In the 
Apostles' days, as we learn from the passage, Acts xvi ; 5, "the 
Churches were established in the faith." A subversion of the 
8 



114 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

faith must, therefore, so far as it extends, be considered a 
subversion of the Church. To the same extent, a corruption of 
the faith, which amounts not to its subversion, is but a corrup- 
tion of the Church. It amounts not to its subversion. Save 
the substance of the faith in its outward profession, and you 
save the substance of the Church in its visible Catholicism. 

I. This, as I have already remarked, is the view of the Visi- 
ble Church Catholic, which is taken by our own Standards, 
and our best standard writers : a remark to the brief illustra- 
tion of which I now invite attention. 

1. In looking at our Standards, then, we may refer again to 
our XlXth Article. It defines "the Visible Church of Christ" 
to be, as to its essence, " a Congregation of faithful men ;" and 
then, as to its visibility, that congregation, that whole com- 
pany, " in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the 
sacraments be duly administered according to Christ's ordi- 
nance, in all those things that, of necessity, are requisite to 
the same." Wherever the great congregation of true believ- 
ers come out into profession, under the preaching of the true 
Gospel, and a due administration of Christ's sacraments, in 
all things necessary thereto, there, according to this Article, 
the true Visible Church of Christ exists. What is, indeed, 
necessary to the due administration of these sacraments, the 
Article does not decide. Individual writers may be found, in 
sufficient numbers, who strenuously contend that, to the very 
essence of these sacraments, an Episcopal ministry is neces- 
sary ; that, without this ministry, there is and can be no such 
thing as a Christian sacrament. But this decision our Church 
has not pronounced, and cannot be made authoritatively to de- 
clare. So far is she from this, that her highest authorities in 
England, following in this the voice of antiquity, have decided 
that even laj'-baptism, however irregular, is nevertheless valid, 
and ought not to be repeated. Her Article, therefore, does, by 
no means, teach that the Visible Church of Christ is confined 
to the limits of Episcopally administered sacraments. It is 
one thing, to say that non-Episcopal bodies, as separate organ- 
izations, are, in the full sense, regular Churches ; and quite 
another, to say that their members belong to the one Visible 



TESTIMONY OF STANDARDS. 115 

Catholic Church of Christ. The former, an Episcopalian 
needs not to assert ; to the latter it behooves him very stead- 
fastly to hold. 

2. But, without dwelling longer on the Article, let us pro- 
ceed to other testimony. In our Communion service is the 
prayer, entitled, "For the whole state of Christ's Church mili- 
tant." This, I understand of the Visible Church on earth, of 
this Church, as militant, or warring against those deadly foes 
within itself, sin, error and superstition ; as well as against 
those leagued enemies without, " the world, the flesh, and the 
Devil." Of whom, then, according to this solemn and author- 
ized form, does the Visible, or, as it is here termed, " the Uni- 
versal Church " of Christ, His whole, or Catholic Church, in 
its visibility, consist 1 Hear the witness. Of " all, who do 
confess His holy name." For all these, and none less, the 
prayer goes up, that they may, as is most desirable, be " in- 
spired with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord 5" or, that 
they " may agree in the truth of His holy Word, and live in 
unity and godly love :" and that " their Bishops, and other 
ministers, may, both by their life and doctrine, set forth His 
true and lively Word, and rightly and duly administer His holy 
sacraments." This testimony is very emphatic. " The Uni- 
versal," or Catholic " Church" of Christ, is expressly defined 
as made up of " all who do confess His holy name ;" and its 
visibility is here, as in the article, considered as coming out, 
in this confession, under the appointed forms of the preaching 
of the " true and lively Word," and of the " right and due ad- 
ministration of the holy sacraments." It is true, that more is 
expressed here than in the Article. There is a distinct intima- 
tion that we have adopted, and hold fast to, an Episcopal ministry ; 
though without any claim that this ministry is indispensably 
necessary to the being of the sacraments. We ask "grace," 
here, not merely for " all Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons," 
but, for " all Bishops and other ministers," all other ministers: 
in short, for all who minister to the " all who do confess 
Christ's holy name," and who thus make part of " the whole," 
or universal, " state of His Church militant." This prayer, and 
the ancient liturgies, in which it stands, were doubtless framed 



116 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

in times when there was none but an Episcopal ministry. 
But, it has been adopted, both in England and in this country, 
with the knowledge and the virtual acknowledgement of the 
fact, that there are now, in some true sense, ministers of Christ 
who have never been Episcopally ordained. 

3. This freedom of our Prayer-Book language from all par- 
ticularizing, its large generalness of expression, is somewhat 
remarkable. Another instance of it occurs in the last prayer, at 
" the Institution of Ministers." We there pray for " the 
Church," " built upon the foundation of the apostles and pro- 
phets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone ;" 
" that, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, all Christians may 
be so joined together in unity of spirit and in the bond of 
peace, that they may be an holy temple, acceptable unto 
God." This language is broad as possible. It knows no 
"foundation" to the Church, narrower than " Christ j" and no 
"temple" for the visible Zion smaller than that which con- 
tains " all Christians." In one sense, this is a prayer of sor- 
rows. It looks sadly on this world-wide Church of Christ, and 
sees it agitated, divided, and, in many things, defiled. In 
another sense, however, it is a prayer of faith. It looks en- 
couragingly on this Church universal, and, in the bending of 
strong, hopeful entreaty, sees the time, when the true " unity," 
that " of the Spirit," and the true " bond," that of " Peace," 
shall embrace and bind together in love " all Christians," all 
who profess the name and faith of Christ ; and when, thus, the 
Church visible shall, as nearly as earth will allow, become 
identical with the Church spiritual. And, in this character, it 
is a prayer, into which every large-hearted disciple of Christ 
delights to put his whole soul of believing, trustful intercession. 

4. In the " Prayer for all conditions of men," we have 
another instance of this large generalness of language. We 
there " pray for the holy Church universal j" " that all who pro- 
fess and call themselves Christians" " may," "by the guidance 
and governance of God's good Spirit," "be led into the way of 
truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of 
peace, and in righteousness of life." This prayer, let it be 
remembered, was not in the ancient liturgies. It is of English, 



TESTIMONY OF STANDARDS. 117 

Protestant origin ; and was framed, it is alleged, by the great 
and good Bishop Sanderson, of Lincoln. His views of the 
comprehension of the Visible Church are, as we shall see, 
well known ; and there can be no doubt that, when this for- 
mula speaks of the " holy Church universal" as embracing 
" all who profess and call themselves Christians," it means to 
include, not only all the ancient and Episcopal communions, 
but also all the then modern, Reformed, and Protestant bodies, 
though all of these were not Episcopally constituted. It 
means, says our American Bishop Brownell, " the Oriental, 
the Greek, the Latin, the Reformed, with every denomination 
of Christians."* When the English Church, and our American 
Episcopal after them, adopted this prayer into their solemn 
Liturgy, they not only prayed, (with the heart of every true 
follower of Christ saying, Amen,) that " the faith may be held 
in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness 
of life," but also taught, (with whatever of authority they 
possess,) that the " Church universal" includes, — amid what- 
ever of present agitation, division, and corruption, still in the 
hope of future peace, union, and purity — " all who profess and 
call themselves Christians." The profession of the true Chris- 
tian faith ; the calling themselves of Christ ; the putting of 
themselves forth before the world under the accustomed forms 
of Christian profession, under the preaching of the pure Gospel 
and the due reception of Christ's sacraments, are here, by 
specially Protestant witnessing, set forth as the true, compre- 
hending lines of the whole visible Body of Christ. 

5. This strong view comes out, with a governing power, in 
the language used in our American "Preface" to the Book of 
Common Prayer; an official document of the highest con- 
sideration, set forth by authority of our highest Council, the 
General Convention of 1789. The language to which I refer, 
is this: "But when, in the course of divine Providence, these 
American States became independent with respect to civil 
government, their ecclesiastical independence was necessarily 
included ; and the different religious denominations of Chris- 

* Commentary on Book of Common Prayer. 



118 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

tians in these states were left at full and equal liberty to model 
and organize their respective Churches, and forms of worship 
and discipline in such manner as they might judge most con- 
venient for their future prosperity ; consistently with the con- 
stitution and laws of their country." 

Here the non-Episcopal communions of the United States 
are acknowledged to be " Churches." It is not admissible to 
say that this word is here used loosely and by courtesy ; or 
that, while the term, Church, belongs exclusively to us, that 
of " religious denominations of Christians" is the appropriate 
description of others. The language which I have quoted, is 
not that of mere careless politeness. It is that of strictly 
serious intent. It has become fashionable, in certain quarters, 
to restrict the term, Church, to ourselves, and to apply that of 
" religious denominations of Christians" to others. But our 
highest Council, that which first gave form to our Church in 
this land, applies this latter description to ourselves as well as 
to others. When it speaks of " the different religious deno- 
minations of Christians in these states," as being " left at full 
and equal liberty to model and organize their respective 
Churches," it includes all : it calls ourselves, as well as the rest, 
11 a religious denomination of Christians." When, therefore, 
it declares that all these denominations had "full and equal 
liberty to model and organize their respective Churches," it 
admits that they are all Churches ; it concedes the essence of 
Church character to others, as seriously and as strictly as it 
claims the essence of that character for ourselves. I say not, 
that it concedes to them the same regularness, perfectness, or 
scripturalness of Church character, which, in other documents, 
we claim for ourselves j but, that it concedes to them the es- 
sence of that character as seriously and as strictly as it claims 
the essence of that character for ourselves. Any other infer- 
ence makes our Church an insincere, equivocating courtier, 
when speaking of the things of God in her highest, most dignified 
capacity, on one of the greatest, most solemn crises of her his- 
tory. She hath not thus degraded herself. She is erect in high- 
minded integrity. She hath seriously conceded to non-Episco- 
palians the essence of Church character. And this is the reason, 



STANDARD WRITERS. 119 

why, at least till she loses her Protestantism, she cannot be 
made to utter the authoritative decision, that the Episcopacy- 
is necessary to the being of a Church ; or that the non-Epis- 
copal denominations are no Churches. 

So far, then, as our Standards are concerned, the testimony 
may be considered ample in favor of the view, which I have 
given of the Visible Church Catholic ; that it comprehends the 
whole visible company, on earth, of those who profess the 
Christian faith, maintain the preaching of the Gospel, are uni- 
ted by the common bond of sacraments, and are infected by 
no heresy subversive of the true and whole faith of Christ. 

II. Let us now look, a moment, at the testimony of our 
Standard writers. It will be found luminous on the point of 
which I treat. By our standard writers, I mean those of our 
Protestant Reformation ; those who lived in the country where 
this Reformation took place, and in the century adjoining that 
in which it happened : the English writers of the seventeenth 
century, 

1. Dr. Thomas Jackson, of Newcastle, (already quoted,) 
writing in the early part of that century, and one of the most 
eminent of the great men of that great age, in his " Treatise of 
the holy Catholic Faith and Church," after defining " the Church 
in its prime," or spiritual " sense," uses this language : " In 
a secondary analogical sense, every present visible Church, 
which holdeth the holy Catholic faith, without which no man 
can be saved, pure and undefiled with the traditions or inven- 
tions of men, may be termed a holy Catholic Church j" not 
only Catholic, but holy. " Who they be," he adds, " which 
profess the unity of that faith" " is visible and known to all 
such as either hear them profess it, viva voce, or can read and un- 
derstand their profession of it given in writing."* And, to shew 
that, by the phrase, " every present visible Church," he does 
not mean, every Episcopal organization alone, he goes on to 
speak of " such a communion," as existed " between the 
orthodoxal professors of the English, or other Reformed 
Churches,"f and of Luther and Christian princes, by God's 

* Treatise on the Holy Catholic Faith and Church, p. 152. Phil. 1844. 
t Treatise, etc., p. 154. 



120 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

appointment, uniting the visible members of the holy Catholic 
Church into visible Churches."* 

Indeed, in those days of close searching into the essence and 
nature of things spiritual and ecclesiastical, there was no idea, 
among this class of English divines, of shutting the Eeformed 
Continental Churches out of the pale of visible Catholicism. 
Hence Bishop Hall, even while lamenting their want of Epis- 
copal order, yet, in view of their holding the true faith of the 
Gospel, affectionately terms them " the Church of England's 
dearest sisters abroad."! Jackson's definition, therefore, of the 
Visible Church, spreads itself over the whole ground which we 
have been surveying. To make the Visible Church holy, it 
must, according to him, hold the Catholic faith pure and 
undefiled. But, if it hold this faith, corrupted " by tradi- 
tions and inventions of men," though it thereby ceases to be a 
holy, yet it does not thereby cease to be a visible Church, or 
a portion of the one visible Church Catholic on earth. This 
Church may and generally does exist in a state far from pure 
and holy. 

2. Again, Bishop Sanderson, of Lincoln, the alleged author 
of our " Prayer for ell conditions of men," utters a most ap- 
posite definition on this point. After having given that which 
I formerly quoted when speaking of the spiritual, or invisible 
Church, he immediately adds : " The whole company of all 
those, throughout the world, who, by their doctrine and wor- 
ship, do outwardly make profession of the name of Christ ; 
this we call the Universal Visible Church; or the Catholic 
Christian Church." And then, to shew in what various condi- 
tions this universal Visible Church may exist, and what it is 
that utterly subverts it, he says : a A total and utter defection 
from the whole faith of Christ, in doctrine and in worship, 
destroys the very being of a Church, and maketh it no Church 
at all. But, a defection from the purity of faith doth not take 
away the being of a Church : (it remains still a true Church ;) 
but only maketh it an impure and corrupt Church, and, so far 
forth, a false Church." " Corruptions in doctrine and worship, 

* Treatise, etc., p. 158. PhiL 1844. j Hall's Sermon on Noah ; s Dove. 



STANDARD WRITERS. 121 

as they are greater or lesser, so they make a Church more or 
less, comparatively"* corrupt. 

Upon the entire coincidence of all this with the view, which 
I have given of the Visible Church Catholic, I need not stop 
to comment. It makes the true distinction between what is 
necessary to the being, and what is requisite to the well-being 
of this Church. 

The same writer repeatedly speaks of " the Protestant 
Churches," (meaning that of England and those of the Con- 
tinent,) as standing together on the " substance of faith j" 
being " more or less reformed in doctrine and worship j" and 
constituting " particular visible Churches."! 

3. Again : Cosin, afterwards Bishop of Durham, and a most 
strenuous Churchman, calls the French Protestants, in the mid- 
dle of the seventeenth century, " Reformed Churches," and 
discountenances a refusal of their Communion, when the plea 
urged for such refusal, is that, " for want of Episcopal ordina- 
tion they have no order at all ;" that is, no ministerial ordina- 
tion. "If, upon this ground," says he, "we renounce the 
French, we must, for the very same reason, renounce all the 
ministers of Germany besides j" " and then, what will become 
of the Protestant party?" "If the Church and kingdom of 
England have acknowledged them, (as they" have etc.,) "why 
should we, that are but private persons, utterly disclaim their 
Communion 1"J This, coming from such a person, is, perhaps, 
one of the most striking testimonies to the truth that Episcopal 
ordination is not indispensable to the being, though, in our 
judgment, it certainly is to the well-being of the Visible 
Church. 

4. Once more ; the great Hooker hesitates not to speak thus 
strongly : " If, by external profession, they be Christians, then 
they are the Visible Church of Christ ; and Christians by ex- 
ternal profession, they are all, whose mark of recognizance 
hath in it those things, which we have mentioned, (one Lord, 

* Discourse on the Visibility of the true Church, in Hooker's Collection, Phil. 
1844, pp. 213—215. 
t Discourse, etc., Hooker's Collection, pp. 222—224. 
X Letter to Cordel, ibid. p. 234. 



122 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

one faith, one baptism,) yea, although they be impious idol- 
aters, wicked heretics, persons excommunicable." And then 
to the question, whether it be possible for such persons, belong- 
ing, as they really do, " to the Synagogue of Satan," to belong 
also " to the Church of Jesus Christ," he answers, in the very 
spirit of my whole argument, " unto that Church which is His 
mystical Body," it is " not possible " for such persons to be- 
long: "because that Body consisteth of none but only true 
Israelites, true sons of Abraham, true servants and saints of 
God." But, w of the visible Body and Church of Jesus Christ, 
those may be and often are "* members, who answer the fear- 
ful description just given. Undoubtedly then, according to 
this writer, they belong to this Church, who, are neither im- 
pious idolaters nor wicked heretics, but who, in their outward 
profession, hold the truth in the main uncorrupt, and, in their 
outward lives, walk with becoming consistency to their pro- 
fession, notwithstanding, in the order of their ministry, they 
lack what we deem requisite to its fullness. 

5. To the same effect, though, if possible, stronger still, is 
the language of Bishop Hall. u It is not the variety of by- 
opinions that can exclude them from having their part in that 
one Catholic Church, and their just claim to the Communion 
of Saints. While they hold the solid and precious foundation, 
it is not the hay or stubble, which they lay upon it, that can 
set them off from God or His Church." And then, after 
lamenting, in the most impassioned strain, the numerous dis- 
sensions and errors, which have crept in among Christians, he 
proceeds thus to assert that they do not destroy the real one- 
ness of the visible Church. " Notwithstanding all this hideous 
variety of vain and heterodoxal conceptions, He, who is the 
truth of God and the Bridegroom of His Church, hath said — 
' My Dove, my undefiled, is one ;' one in the main, essential, 
fundamental verities necessary to salvation, though differing in 
divers mis-raised corollaries, inconsequent inferences, unne- 
cessary additions, feigned traditions, unwarrantable practices. 
The Body is one, though the garments differ ; yea, rather, for 

* Ecclesiastical Polity, Book iii., § 1. 



STANDARD WRITERS. 123 

most of these, the garment is one, but differs in the dressing ; 
handsomely and comely set out by some, disguised by another. 
Neither is it, or ever shall be, in the power of all the fiends 
of hell, the professed make-baits of the world, to make God's 
Church other than one : which were, indeed, utterly to ex- 
tinguish and reduce it to nothing ; for the unity and entity of 
the Church can no more be divided than itself." " Those, that 
agree in all the main principles of religion, Christ is pleased 
to admit, for matter of doctrine, as members of that Body 
whereof He is the Head : and if they admit not of each other 
as such, the fault is in the uncharitableness of the refusers, no 
less than in the error of the refused. If any vain and loose 
stragglers will needs sever themselves, and willfully choose to 
go ways of their own, let them know that the union of Christ's 
Church shall consist entire without them. This great ocean 
will be one collection of waters, when these drops are lost in 
the dust."* 

6. And finally, Bishop Taylor, declaring in what sense the 
word, Church, is applied to this mixed, and often distracted 
Body, says: "the word, Church," "maybe, and is, given to 
them by way of supposition, and legal presumption, as a jury 
of twelve men are called ' good men and true ;' that is they 
are not known to be otherwise, and are therefore presumed to 
be such : and they are the Church, in all human accounts ; that 
is, they are the congregation of all that profess the name of 
Christ ; in which are the wheat and the tares ; and they are 
bound up in common by the union of sacraments and external 
rites, name and profession ; but in nothing else."f 

To estimate the true value of these testimonies, from our old 
writers, to the view, which I have given of the Visible Catholic 
Church, it must be borne in mind that they belong to the age, 
which closely follows that of the Reformation itself ; that they 
write in view of the great outstanding fact that a large portion 
of the Reformed Body is without an Episcopal ministry ; and 
that they are in the habit of speaking of this portion as " the 
Reformed Churches." 

* Bishop Hall's Treatise of Christ Mystical, chapter vii., § 2. 

| Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery, Part ii., B. I., Sect, i., §§ i. and ii. 



124 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

This whole discussion about the character of the Visible 
Church might, it is true, under ordinary circumstances, and to 
some minds, be uninteresting, and even deemed unprofitable. 
But, it cannot be so considered, when we remember that the 
circumstances of the times, in which we live, are very extra- 
ordinary. "We live in a day, when multitudes in the midst of 
us are laboring to upheave the very foundations of our Protes- 
tantism, and to deprive of all claim to the very name of a 
Church, those whom our own ecclesiastical fathers have 
acknowledged as belonging to the great visible Body of Christ. 
This effort can never succeed without putting in jeopardy our 
own integrity, if not our own existence, as a Church j nor, 
what is worse, without undermining all that is most precious 
in the Gospel of Christ, as we receive it from " the Living 
Oracles" of God ! Under such circumstances, every thing, 
touching right views of even the Visible Church, links itself 
vitally with the Christian teacher's great theme, " Jesus Christ, 
and Him crucified." We must lose our interest in this all- 
essential, all-enlivening heart of the Gospel, before we can 
become indifferent to the great question, What is the true 
comprehension of the Visible Church 1 or, to the efforts, which 
are made to exclude from it some of the most marked portions 
of the professed followers of Christ. 

In speaking thus, I would be considered, not the apologist 
of non-Episcopalians, but the advocate of essentially true 
Church principles. That any portion of the Visible Church 
is without the Episcopacy, is to me, for sufficient reasons, a 
matter of sincere grief. But, whatever be my judgment of 
their condition, it would be a matter, not merely of real grief, 
but of conscious wrong, were I to lay at the basis of the Visible 
Church a principle, which, in its operation, cuts off any, who, 
by the laws of truth and right, belong to its great corpora- 
tion. 

Other questions, touching the Visible Church, remain for 
consideration. The Lord give us all a discerning spirit — the 
spirit of Light — to guide us through the many confusions of 
time, and to bring us, at last, to that Church in eternity, whose 
members are all " saints in light." 



DISCOURSE VIII. 



" God hath set some in the Church 5 first, Apostles j secondarily, Prophets 
thirdly, teachers." — 1 Cor. xii ; 28. 



The Church Catholic, in its divine holiness, and in its actual 
visibleness ; what each truly comprehends, and what is neces- 
sary to the actual being of each; this is the subject upon 
which the present series has thus far been engaged. Christ, 
and the members really united with Him by the Spirit, in a 
living and a holy faith; this is the Spiritual Church Catholic 1 
Christ, and the members professedly united with Him, under 
the preaching of His Gospel and the sealing of His sacraments; 
this is the Visible Church Catholic : each in its essence, in what 
is necessary to its existence. 

And here, were I dealing simply with principles, with the 
truths of God's Word, and the essentials of His Church, I might 
leave the subject ; not because, even in this view, it is ex- 
hausted, but because enough has been said to clear the one 
point, at which I have been aiming; the true comprehension 
of the Church of Christ. 

But, since it is evident that I am dealing — not with princi* 
pies alone, but — with men, and the practical working out of 
principles, it is also evident that I am bound to consider not 
only what is necessary to the being of the Church, but also 
what is requisite to its well-being ; what was designed to con- 
duce to its order, its permanency and its prosperity. 



126 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

I. The main requisites to this well-being of the Church are 
doubtless to be found in a faithful preaching of the Gospel, 
and in a due administration of the sacraments of Christ. — 
But, both these, as reason may infer and as the Scriptures 
teach, imply a ministry, whose office it is both to preach the 
Gospel and to administer the sacraments. And this ministry 
is of God. " God hath set some in the Church ; first, Apos- 
tles ; secondarily, Prophets ; thirdly teachers." Whatever 
name this ministry may, at difierent times, have borne 5 by 
whatever varying forms it may have successively been modi- 
fied ; and through whatever outward channel it may, at its first 
beginning, have descended ; it came from God, and not from 
man : its authority is divine, and not human. 

I have selected for consideration the passage, I Cor. xiij 28, 
not so much on account of its numerals, its " first, secondarily, 
and thirdly," as for two other reasons. It shews, as we have just 
seen, that the ministry of the Church is from God; " God hath 
set it in the Church :" and yet, it shews that this ministry is 
not the Church, but only " some " of its members, " set " in 
peculiar stations, and with special authority, " in the Church." 
Its officers are " set in the Church." The Church is not, as 
some hold, set in its officers. The distinction between these 
two views is very important. When writers of a well known 
school speak of the Church, they speak as though they had 
nothing in view but its ministry ; as though in this ministry its 
very being were involved ', insomuch that, without this minis- 
try, the Church itself would cease to exist. But, look into the 
chapter, from which this passage is taken, and see how very 
different is the view there given. "As the Body is one, and 
hath many members, and all the members of that one Body, 
being many, are one Body ; so also is Christ. For by one 
Spirit we are all baptized into one Body, whether we be Jews 
or Gentiles ; whether we be bond or free ; and have been all 
made to drink info one Spirit. For the Body is not one mem- 
ber, but many." "God hath set the members, every one of 
them, in the Body as it hath pleased Him. And if they were 
all one member, where were the Body 1 But now are they 



THE MINISTRY. 127 

many members, yet but one Body."* Here Christ is likened 
to a human body ; a head, with many members ; and all to- 
gether constituting one body. This Body, not its ministry 
alone, but this whole Body, with its Head and many members, 
constitutes the Church ; and in this Church " God hath set 
some" of the members as ministers, in places of peculiar emi- 
nence and importance ; just as, in the human fabric, He hath 
assigned corresponding stations to the eye, the ear, and the 
hand. Now, we may as well say that the human body consists 
in the eye, and ear, and hand j or that it cannot exist without 
these important members ; as that the Church, the Body of 
Christ, consists in its ministry, those members whom " God 
hath set" in places of peculiar eminence ; or that it cannot 
exist without this ministry. Suppose the eye were gone, or the 
ear, or the hand, or all these together ; still the body would 
not be gone. So long as there are a head, thinking, knowing, 
and governing ; a heart, living, pulsing and feeling ; and ani- 
mal functions, receiving, digesting and distributing ; so long 
as head, and heart, and animal functions remain, the body re- 
mains, though it have not eye, or ear, or hand ; yea, though it 
want all these at once. Under this want, it would indeed be 
a maimed, imperfect, suffering body : still, it would be a body, 
with life, and soul, and action, and somewhat of enjoyment. So, 
from the Church, suppose a part or the whole of its ministry 
were gone, still, the Church itself would not be gone. So long 
as Christ, its thinking, knowing, governing Head ; and the 
Spirit, its living, pulsing, quickening Heart ; and " the many 
members," its receiving, digesting, distributing organism ; so 
long as these remained, the Church itself would remain 5 though 
it had not its higher, its middle, or its lower ministries; yea, 
though it wanted all its ministries at once. Under this depri- 
vation, it is true, it would be a maimed, imperfect, suffering 
Church ; still it would be a Church ; and might have life, spirit, 
and action, and somewhat of a divine joy. 

1. This view shews the difference between the ministry, as 
being " set in the Church ;" and the Church, as consisting or 

*ICor. xiij 12—14,18, 19 



128 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

being organized in the ministry. It solves the problem^ 
whether the members make the ministry, or the ministry the 
members, of the Church 1 by shewing, that the truth lies on 
neither side the question. Certainly the ministry do not make 
the members of the Church ; and as certainly the members 
do not make the ministry. Each, indeed, has somewhat to do 
in recognizing the other ; but neither makes the other. God 
makes them both ; fits them each for the other, and sets them 
both together in Christ. Just as in the human organism ; the 
eye does not make the ear, nor the hand the foot ; but God 
makes them all ; fits them all to serve and help each other, and 
sets them all together in the body. This truth is too often left 
out of sight. The whole Church, whether as spiritual, or as 
visible, is God's work, not man's. True, He uses men in this 
work ; and He uses the common members in making the min- 
istry, as really as He uses the ministry in making common 
members. Still, the work itself is His. The Church is " His 
workmanship." He " sets all the members," " every one of 
them," in it ; the lower as well as the higher. Without His 
authority and agency, whether as inward or as outward, the 
Church would not exist ; and these are the only things, without 
which it cannot exist. 

2. Again ; the view given in the chapter, from which the 
passage is taken, shews the distinction between the being of 
the Church, and its well-being; between what is essential to 
its existence, and what is requisite to its fulness, perfectness, 
and comfort. The eye, the ear, and the hand are certainly 
requisite to the fulness, the perfectness, and the comfort of the 
human body; and yet, if each and everyone of these were 
lost, the being, the essence of the body would remain, so long 
as the head, the heart, and the animal functions were left un- 
touched and in living action. It were folly to lose sight of the 
difference between what is thus necessary to the being and life 
of the body, and what is thus requisite to its best, most effective, 
and most happy being. It is unspeakably important to have a 
body with all its members, especially its chief members j a 
body full, perfect, strong, and able to do every thing for which 
it was designed : but, for the purposes of this world, it is better 



THE MINISTRY. . 129 

to have a body, with the loss of some even of its most impor- 
tant members, than to have no body at all. So, in the things 
of Christ, a ministry is certainly requisite to the fulness, the 
perfectness, and the welfare of the Church : and yet, if a part, 
or the whole of this ministry should, by possibility, be lost, 
the being, the essence of the Church would remain, so long as 
Christ, the Spirit, and the great organism of members remain- 
ed in divine life and activity. It were equal folly to lose 
sight of the difference between what is thus necessary to the 
being and life of the Church, and what is thus requisite to its 
best, most effective, and most happy being. We cannot over- 
rate the importance of having a Church, with its whole organ- 
ism of members, ministry and all, complete, perfect, healthy, 
and able to do every thing, for which it was constituted : but, 
for the purposes of both worlds, it is better to have a Church, 
with the loss of some even of its chiefest members, of a part, 
or the whole of its ministry, than to have no Church at all ; 
than to lose Christ, and the Spirit, and the great "Communion 
of Saints" from off the earth and out of Heaven,' than to 
lose Head, and Heart, and the whole living organism from 
among all the offspring of the Infinite Father. 

It may be urged, that if, by possibility, the ministry should 
be lost, though the Church would remain for a time, yet, by 
the death of its members, and for want of a ministry formally 
to initiate their successors, it would, in the course of one 
natural generation, expire. But, this is not a far-sighted view. 
So long as Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and the Word of living 
truth coming from them both, remain in the world, God can 
make and ingraft a succession of members into the Body of 
Christ, which is His Church, even without the hand of an or- 
dained ministry. True, a Church, thus perpetuated, would, 
as a visible Body, be a maimed, an imperfect Church. Still, 
it would be a Church ; and, for God's purposes, unspeakably 
better than no Church at all. 

But, whatever be the difference between the being, and the 

well-being of the Church, we have this to comfort us : the 

ministry is not lost ; nor, while Christ's promise remains true, 

can it ever be lost. What is thus requisite to the well-being 

9 



130 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

of the Church, the Church has, and will have ; at least till 
Christ comes again and puts Himself once more into the place 
of all ministries. 

II. This ministry, then, thus durably existent, and thus 
requisite to the well-being of the Church, — what is it 1 That its 
commission of authority is from Christ ; that God, not man, 
" hath set it in the Church," and in eminence, as " some " 
among the u many members," to serve and be served in the 
weal and working of the whole Body, we have already seen. 
But, what is this commission of authority, this eminence among 
the members, with which " God hath set the ministry in the 
Church V This question leads us into a subject too wide for 
argument in this place ; and, therefore, I must content myself 
with a simple confession of my faith, that it may stand, for the 
present, instead of any long array of proofs. 

1. I begin this confession, then, in the words, which, in the 
Preface to her Ordinal, or form of Ordaining, our Church her- 
self puts into my mouth 5 and which I am prepared to utter 
out of my heart. 

" It is evident," says this document, " unto all men, dili- 
gently reading holy Scripture and ancient authors, that, from 
the Apostles' time, there have been these orders of ministers 
in Christ's Church ; Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. Which 
offices were evermore had in such reverend estimation, that no 
man might presume to execute any of them, except he were 
first called, tried, examined, and known to have such qualities 
as are requisite for the same ; and also by public prayer, with 
imposition of hands, were approved and admitted thereunto 
by lawful authority. And therefore, to the intent that these 
orders may be continued and reverently used and esteemed in 
this Church, no man shall be accounted or taken to be a. lawful 
Bishop, Priest, or Deacon in this Church, or suffered to execute 
any of the said functions, except he be called, tried, examined, 
and admitted thereunto, according to the form hereafter follow- 
ing, or hath had Episcopal consecration, or ordination." 

This confession, it will be seen, settles, for us, several 
points. First ; that, " from the Apostles' time, there have 
been in Christ's Church three orders of ministers 5 Bishops, 



THE MINISTRY. 131 

Presbyters, and Deacons." It says not, from Christ's time ; 
but " from the Apostles' time." The simple commission and 
authority of the ministry, it receives from Christ himself, as 
left by Him "in His Church." But the distribution of this 
commission and authority among three orders it traces no 
farther back than the Apostles. Christ put the authority and 
commission upon them ; they distributed that authority and 
commission among three orders of ministers. In what this 
distribution consisted, what special powers, or prerogatives, 
were assigned to each of the three orders, is a query, which 
this confession does not touch. It merely asserts the fact of 
such distribution, and the existence of this fact " in Christ's 
Church," " from the Apostles' time." 

Second : that for the exercise of any office under this three- 
fold ministry, it was " evermore " necessary that the incum- 
bent should be " tried," found possessed of " the requisite 
qualifications " and " admitted by lawful authority." Where 
this " lawful authority " was primarily lodged, is also a ques- 
tion, which this confession toucheth not : it merely decides, 
inferentially, that any entrance into this threefold ministry, 
save through the door of such lawful authority, was " ever- 
more " held to be an usurpation, a thing null of itself. 

And third ; that, " in this Church," this Protestant Episco- 
pal Church of ours, the threefold ministry shall be perpetuated j 
and that the only lawful way of entrance into any of its three 
orders shall be through our prescribed forms of trial, and of 
ordination by Bishops, or through some other equivalent Epis- 
copal acts. Here the full Episcopacy comes out, as our unal- 
terable regimen. It is said — not that the trine ministry, must, 
to the exclusion of every other form, be perpetuated in Christ's 
Church, or in the Church as necessary to its existence ; — but, 
that this ministry shall, as a fact, be perpetuated " in this 
Church," this Protestant Episcopal Church of ours : not that 
there is no possible way of entering into the ministry of Christ's 
Church, or of the Church, save through our forms of trial and 
ordination, or their equivalents ; but that there shall be no 
other lawful way of entering into the ministry of " this 
Church," this Protestant Episcopal Church of ours. In both 



132 . THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

places, that little word, " this," is brimful of meaning and 
importance. And so it is felt to be by others. Had the word 
been the, instead of " this," or Christ's, instead of " this," it 
would have made a vast difference of meaning. It would have 
made our Ordinal declare what our Church herself has never 
declared ; and what, — I repeat, — till she loses her Protestant- 
ism, she cannot be made, by her high authorities, to declare ; 
that, without an Episcopacy, there can be no such thing as a 
ministry in the Church of Christ. Any one may, if he choose, 
privately hold such an opinion. But our Church by her 
authorities has never enforced it : she does not here enforce it, 
upon either her members or her ministers. She merely de- 
clares that, within her limits and jurisdiction, nothing but an 
Episcopacy shall be lawful.* 

Once more ; the confession, which I am now upon, declares : 
that, " to all men diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient 
authors, it is evident," as a matter of fact, that there has been a 
trine ministry " in the Church of Christ " ever since " the 
Apostles' time." It declares that this fact makes itself " evi- 
dent unto all diligent readers " of those olden records. And 
for this, from the heart, I contend. The confession says, not 
that this evidence runs back into Christ, but that it runs back 
unto the Apostles ; and that this evidence lies, not on the 
" Scriptures " alone, but, on the " Scriptures and ancient 
authors." And I profess I cannot impeach this confession of 
rashness in what it says. The thing is reasonably " evident " 
to all who thus read both the testimonies cited. Though the 

* Suppose it were argued : that The Preface to our Ordinal asserts that, in 
Christ's Church there have always and every where heen Bishops, Priests, and 
Deacons ; and thereiore decrees that in this Church, this same Church of Christ, 
no man shall be accounted a lawlul Bishop, Priest, or Deacon, or be suffered to 
execute any of the said functions, unless he be called, tried, examined, and 
admitted thereto according to our form, or some other Episcopal mode, of or- 
daining : it would be seen that the conclusion makes our Church virtually de- 
clare that there is no Christian ministry, except such as has been Episcopally 
ordained ; that none but such shall be allowed to officiate in the Church of 
Christ, in any part of the world. This would not only make her, in theory, un- 
church a considerable part of Christendom, but also pledge her to carry the un- 
churching edict into practice. The truth is, that in this language, she is merely 
defining who shall be allowed to exercise the office of a Bishop, Priest, or Dea- 
con in this, our Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. 



THE MINISTRY. 133 

Scriptures alone may not " evidence " this Episcopal fact to 
a demonstration, yet, "diligently read," they shew, by no 
equivocal marks, the progress, which the Apostles made in the 
trine distribution of the ministerial office. Taking the minis- 
terial commission and authority itself directly from Christ, one 
of their first acts was to originate, by prayer and the laying on 
of hands, an order of Deacons. Another, of frequent recur- 
rence, was, the " ordaining of Elders," or Presbyters. And a 
third was, the occasional appointment, as in the case of Timo- 
thy, Titus, and others, of general supervisors over large terri- 
tories, who, whatever the powers and prerogatives of the other 
orders may have been, certainly had, for themselves, the pow- 
er of ordaining to the ministry. Thus much, at least, is plain 
on the very face of the Scriptures. Whoever will " diligently 
read " them and not see that they make these things "evident," 
I am bound to ackowledge that, so far as I can form a judgment, 
he has a strange slowness to see, or a stranger dullness to read, 
evidence. This evidence, I think, cannot reasonably be put 
out of sight, or cross-questioned into self contradiction. 

Coming, then, from the latest " Scriptures," as the writings 
of the Apostles, down to the earliest " ancient authors," those 
who began to live before the last of the Aposfles died, to Cle- 
ment of Rome, Polycarp of Smyrna, and Ignatius of Antioch ; 
another thing is most " evident" to all who "diligently read " 
them. It is, that, to the three orders, which we have seen the 
Apostles arranging in the settlement of the ministry, these 
" ancient authors" gave distinctive names. Whatever varying 
names had been used before, or, however interchangeably some 
of those names may at first have been applied, these " ancient 
authors" had then settled upon three ; and, having done so, 
used them, with a fixed and unchangeable application. They 
uniformity called those three grades, Bishops, Presbyters, and 
Deacons. They speak of those three grades, under these three 
distinctively applied names, as one of the great, outstanding 
facts of their times ; and one of them, Ignatius, expressly declares 
that " there was no Church without them ;"* in other words : that 

* Ep. ad Trail j ia Apostolical Fathers. 1st Am. ed., New York, 1810, p. 207. 



134 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

in all the Churches, then known, there were Bishops, etc. Let 
any candid man "dilligently read" the brief epistles of these first 
three of the "ancient authors," and I think it will be impossible 
for him to doubt their views of the apostolically arranged 
Christian ministry. To my mind, I confess, there is not the 
shadow of a doubt on the point. These authors do cast the 
light of a credible testimony back on the Scriptures ; render- 
ing unconcealably " evident" the fact, that this apostolically 
arranged ministry was threefold, and that its three grades had 
come to be distinctively and fixedly known by the names of 
Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons. This is just what the pre- 
face to our Ordinal asserts, — the evidentness of this great, 
Episcopal fact, to all "diligent readers" of those olden records; 
an evidentness, which, as I read, needs not argument to make 
it strike the eye. 

This, then, is the confession of faith which I have to make ; 
and to which, with all my heart, I am ever prepared to stand. 
And, having said this, I am also prepared to hear and answer 
a question, which will possibly be asked. It may be inquired : 

If the apostles distributed the ministry, which they received, 
into three orders ; and if their successors universally received 
these three ordefs as the established form of the Christian min- 
istry ; why do you not admit that this form of the ministry is 
necessary to the being of the Visible Church ; insomuch that 
bodies, destitute of this form of the ministry, do not belong to 
the Church, as visible and Catholic 1 The question is fair and 
ought to be answered. 

I reply, then ; first, because our Church does not trace this 
threefold distribution of the ministry to Christ, but only to the 
Apostles. Second, because the Apostles themselves do not de- 
monstrate, to the clear satisfaction of all reasonable minds, 
that this threefold distribution was designed, by Divine Right, 
to confine the power of ordination to the first grade, so that 
ordination by the second should, of itself, be null : and third ; 
because some of the greatest writers, both Romanist and Pro- 
testant, have admitted the probability that this power was not 
thus restricted by either Christ or His apostles. To this point, 
I offer the following brief quotations. Cosin, afterwards 



THE MINISTRY. 135 

Bishop of Durham, one of the highest, most strenuous advo- 
cates for Episcopacy, writes thus : " I conceive that the power 
of ordination was restrained to Bishops, rather by apostolical 
practice and the perpetual custom and canons of the Church, 
than by any absolute precept, that either Christ or His Apostles 
gave about it. Nor can I yet meet with any convincing argu- 
ment to set it upon a more high and divine institution." Again : 
"There have been both learned and eminent men, as well in 
former ages as in this, and even among the Roman Catholics 
as well as Protestants, who have held and maintained it for 
good and passable divinity, that Presbyters have the intrinsical 
power of ordination, in actu primo :" although, as he goes on 
to say, in substance, "for the avoidance of schism and the 
preserving of order and discipline in the Church," they have, 
from the first, " been restrained from exercising their power, 
in actu secundo ;" so that now the exercise of their power is 
irregular and canonically void j though " not void simply" in 
itself, " and in the nature of the thing."* For this opinion, 
he cites a catalogue of eminent continental authors, both 
Romish and Protestant ; and, among the great lights of the 
English Church — Jewel, Field, Hooker, and Mason. 

Such, then, in brief, and in addition to what runs through 
my whole argument, are my reasons for regarding Episcopacy 
as not absolutely necessary to the very being of the Visible 
Church. 

And now, should another question be asked : Why, then, do 
you receive and insist on this Episcopacy % Why not relin- 
quish it, if it be not wholly indispensable 1 I have this to 
answer ; because/the Apostles, in distributing the ministry into 
three orders, acted as Christ's chosen and inspired agents. 
These orders, therefore, as to the fact of them, have the virtual 
sanction of Christ. The fact of an Episcopacy, though not 
all the powers with which some exclusively invest it, comes 
virtually from the Divine Head of the Church. Although, 
therefore, a real necessity may have deprived some bodies of 
the Episcopacy, without thereby putting them out of the 

* Letter to Cordel, in Hooker's Col. Philad. 1844; p. 230, 232, 233. 



136 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

Visible Church, yet a needless, voluntary relinquishment of 
the Episcopacy constitutes one of the forms of the fearful evil 
of schism ; breaks the order and discipline of the Church ; and 
hazards deeply, if not fatally, all that is precious in the spiritual 
and temporal well-being of the visible Body of Christ. There- 
fore it is, to say nothing of other reasons, that I do not relin- 
quish the Episcopacy. Such an act, in me, would be a reck- 
less wounding of my Savior in the very house of His friends ! 
This well-being of the Church shall be further considered, 
in my next discourse. 



DISCOURSE IX. 



11 That there should be no schism in the Body." — I Cor. xii ; 25. 



The Church is the Body of Christ. As true, holy and 
Catholic, it is His spiritual or mystical Body ; and as developed 
under needful forms, it is His visible Body ; so called from 
analogy, and the serving of the outward to the inward. 

The Visible Church, of which we are now treating, has its 
being, and its well-being. In its being, it comprehends essen- 
tials only; in its well-being, it comprehends, with these essen- 
tials, what is requisite to their best condition. Those essen- 
tials are ; Christ, the Spirit, and the body of members, under 
the true Gospel and sacraments. This requisite to their best 
condition is, the " setting of all the members in the body," 
each in its proper place, the higher and the lower, the ministry 
and the people ; so that there shall be none wanting, and none 
dislocated ; all the parts rightly put together, and all sustain- 
ing, helping, and perfecting all, in comfort, growth, and action. 
This latter is the Visible Church, in its well-being ; in its best 
health, as well as in its essential life. 

The distinction here taken between the being and the well- 
being of the Church, between the Church itself and the min- 
istry of the Church, is all-important. The Visible Church is 
the whole outward Body of Christ. The ministry is but a 
service of peculiar members " set in it" for its best health and 
action. The Church may have this ministry perfect, or im- 



138 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

perfect ; or, so far as the human hand of ordination is con- 
cerned, it may, by possibility, have no ministry at all ; and, 
according as it is in one, or another of these conditions, it will 
realize, more or less perfectly, its true welfare ; but, in its 
worst condition, it will still be, the Church, the Visible Church 
of Christ in all the earth. This distinction, as we have seen, 
is vital in settling the question, "What is the true compre- 
hension of the Visible Church 1" 

But now, as to this ministry of the Church. In its fulness, 
there are two things about it ; its inward gift, and its outward 
commission. The inward gift is immediately and always from 
the Spirit to the individual. Its bestowment needs no outward 
hand ; no outward hand conveys it. It is indispensable in 
constituting the true minister of Christ ; nor does it ever fail 
to reach him, for whom it is sent. It never falls, by chance, 
on the wrong head. The outward commission is originally 
from Christ, but mediately through the hands of His first Apos- 
tles. Coming thus through human agency, and amid human 
fallibilities, it is not always accompanied by the inward gift. 
It does often fall on the wrong head. Still, it is Christ's com- 
mission 5 and though some bear it who ought not, yet none 
can bear it rightly, but such as bear it lawfully. As it hath 
been committed to the Apostles' hands, so should it be trans- 
mitted according to the Apostles' rule. 

At the close of my last discourse, I professed my faith in 
these points following : that, in transmitting this outward 
commission, the Apostles, for order's sake and discipline, dis- 
tributed it over a ministry of three grades ; that thus Episcopacy 
became, every where, from apostolic time, the model of the 
Christian ministry ; that thus, though it be not of the essence 
of the Church, yet hath it virtually Christ's sanction ; and that, 
therefore, voluntarily and needlessly to abandon it is rashly to 
incur the hazard of the fearful, perhaps fatal evil of schism. 
Now, this evil of schism is opposed to the well-being of the 
Church ; and hence, in speaking of this well-being, it becomes 
desirable to know what is meant by schism. This, then, is the 
topic on which I am now to enter. Schism: What is it! 
What are its evils 1 and how may these evils be cured % 



SCHISM *. ITS NATURE. 139 

I. What, then, is Schism % 

On this point we need clear ideas. Bad as this evil may 
be, it embarrasses all inquiry to make it worse than it is. Some 
appear to think that schism cuts off from the Body of Christ, 
and leaves the exscinded part to die, to perish, as something 
utterly out of the Church ; not, indeed, that every individual, 
involved in schism, is necessarily left to perish everlastingly ; 
but, that the mass of individuals, thus involved, is actually 
left to perish ecclesiastically, as something no longer in, or of, 
the Church. This idea of schism sometimes comes out in print ', 
though generally it is rather the practical inference of unthink- 
ing men, from the extravagant colors in which their teachers 
paint the sin of schism. But, in whatever shape it comes, it 
is a false idea. Schism separates not from the Church. To 
see the truth of this, let us look at it. What is the thing itself! 
In what are we to find its essence 1 

By inspection of the Scriptures, we shall find that it is not 
a severance from the unity of the Church, but a disturbance of 
its union j not a loss of Church essence, but a breach upon 
Church love. 

In the passage now under consideration, the Apostle teaches, 
" that there should be no schism in the Body." Schism, then, 
exists in the Body, in the Church 5 instead of cutting off from 
the body, and putting forth of the Church : and what this 
something in the Church is, we learn from what follows : 
" That there should be no schism in the Body ; but that the 
members should have the same care, one for another. And 
whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it j 
or, one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it."* 
Schism, then, is the opposite of this mutual care, this loving 
sympathy of all the members for and with each other. It is a 
non-intercourse, a lack of mutual care, a loss of loving sympa- 
thy, among the members of the same body. It is, as I said, a 
disturbance of the Church's union ; a breach upon the Church's 
love. As such, it is in and of the Church itself: and this, 
perhaps, is one of the saddest of its features. It is in the 

* I Cor. xiij 25, et seq. 



140 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

Church, where all should be harmony. It is among brother- 
members, whose highest law should be Love ! 

That this is the true idea of schism, as to the subject in 
which it exists, may be seen by comparing the passage just 
explained, with other passages. 

1. In some places the Greek word is used in its verbal form. 
Thus, at the Crucifixion, the vail of the temple is said to have 
been " rent in twain, from the top to the bottom."* That vail 
was then in a state of physical schism. It was " rent ;" in the 
idea of the original, it suffered a schism. And yet, by that 
schism, the parts did not, either of them, cease to belong to 
the one vail. The whole mystic curtain then consisted of its 
two parts. It was simply a rent, a schismed vail. 

2. A similar use of the word occurs in describing the baptis- 
mal scene at Jordan. " Coming up from the water," Jesus 
"saw the heavens opened ;" rent, like a torn curtain.f And 
yet, they were but one heavens. The visible schism did not 
make them two j nor did it put the one side of the rent out of 
heaven. 

3. In other places, we find the word used in its substantive 
form. Thus, in one of the parables, "No man putteth a piece 
of new cloth unto an old garment ; for that which is put in to 
fill it up, taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. "J 
Literally, " the schism is made worse." And yet, at worst, it 
is but a schism in the garment. It is never a casting away of 
a part, so that it ceases to be a part of the garment. 

4. And so, to come nearer the subject ; when, on several 
occasions, the discourses of Christ had set the Jews at fierce 
reasoning among themselves, it is said, " there was a division 
among the people because of Him." " There was a division 
among them." " There was a division again among the Jews 
for these sayings."§ Literally, there was, on all these occa- 
sions, a schism among the Jews ; not a cutting off of a portion, 
so that they ceased to be Jews. Their harmony of opinion 
was disturbed ; and, for the moment, their love cooled under 



* Matt, xxvii j 51, et'paral. > f Mark i ; 10. $ Matt, ix j 16, et paral. 

§ John vii j 43. — ix ; 16 — .x ; 19. 



SCHISM : ITS NATURE. 141 

hot disputings ; but they all remained Jews, notwithstanding 
their schisms. 

5. And finally, to come nearer still ; to passages, in which 
the word means religious schism. St. Paul beseeches his Co- 
rinthian " brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
they all speak the same thing ; that there be no divisions," 
literally, " no schisms, among them ; but that they be perfectly 
joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment."* 
" I hear," says he, " that there be divisions," schisms, u among 
you."f Now, here, the meaning of the word is perfectly man- 
ifest. The Apostle was addressing a part of the Church which 
was full of schism, wicked schism, the worst kind of schism ; 
schism right under the eye of an Apostle, and in the young 
heart itself of the Church. He was rebuking those who had 
already begun to set up, some for Paul, some for Apollos, some 
for Cephas, and some for Christ ; who were getting up a non- 
intercourse, and losing their mutual care, and forgetting their 
loving sympathy, for and with each other, in their unholy 
jealousy and zeal for building up Paul's party, and Apollos's 
party, and Peter's party, and even Christ's party, and striving 
to see which could make their own most popular and most nu- 
merous. And yet, he addressed them all as his "brethren," 
and besought them all, by the dearest of names, that they 
would heal all their schisms, and live in the oneness of an all- * 
cementing love for the common truth, and for their common 
Lord. He spoke of their schisms as being " among" them; 
and not as cutting off Paul's party, or Apollos's party, or Pe- 
ter's party, from Christ and from His Church, and leaving the 
part cut off as no longer a portion of the Savior's Body. He 
treated schism as a thing which was in the Body, which 
belonged to the Body, and in which every part of the Body 
was most tenderly concerned. It was a direful evil ; and so 
far as his prayers could go, he would not have it in the Church 
of Christ. 

The question, What is schism % can now be answered. It 
is a rent, a wound, in the visible Body of our Lord, Christ. 

* I Cor. i ; 10. f I Cor. xi ; 18. 



» 



142 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

It is a rupture of His Church's harmony, a breach upon His 
Church's love. It generally arises out of too curious disputes 
about disputable, perhaps trifling, matters of opinion and judg- 
ment. Sometimes it grows out of the heats of personal prefer- 
ences, or of party ambitions. And it always — perhaps the 
word may be safely used — always ends in non-intercourse, 
jealousies, and strifes ; the internal dissensions of a family, that 
ought ever to " live in perfect love and peace together." 
Such is schism 5 a melancholy rent ; perhaps it were better to 
say, a sore-festering wound, in the visible Body of Christ. One 
of its worst characteristics is, that it is in the Body. And yet, 
this worst reveals its best — that it is not fatal to the Body. 
Individuals may, peradventure, perish everlastingly for foment- 
ing the evil of schism ; but, thanks be to God, their schism 
itself destroyeth not the visible Body of the Redeemer. Yea, 
let Christ be glorified, for that these melancholy rents in the 
vail of His outer temple and in the garment of His visible 
Body, may, by the deft skill of God's true workmen, be 
mended so as never more to appear ; and that the schismed 
firmament of His people's peace maybe closed, so that nothing 
shall rend, or pass it again, save, as of old, the dove-like Spirit 
of God, dropping, silently and every where, as the dew of 
sweet, all-baptizing love ; and that the deep wounds in even 
His outer flesh may all be healed ; till in this outer, as in His 
inner Church, there shall be nought but soundness \ a life in 
every part, and a helping for each other from all the members. 
Every passage which we have examined shews that schism is 
an evil which may be cured ; and that, therefore, it is and 
must be, a fact in the body, and not a severance from the 
body. 

II. If, then, such be schism itself, what are its evils ] We 
may look at these by way of motive to the cure, which is 
needed, and which, thank God again, is possible. 

1. The evils of schism ! Who can count, or estimate them 1 . 
The Body of Christ wounded ; yea, " wounded in the house 
of His friends !" The bond of sacred brotherhood broken ; 
intestine broils, jealousies, divisions, and oppositions ; love, 
starved and dwarfed, and the unloving spirit nursed to a giant $ 



schism: its evils. 143 

and all, among a household of members, who have one Gospel, 
the lively oracles of truth ; who hold one Head, Christ Jesus, 
the Lord ; and who hope to be saved by His death from one 
hell, and to be raised by His life to one heaven ! Here is a 
text for the greatest sermon that man ever preached ! And 
yet, the text itself, perhaps, is greater than any sermon on it 
that could be preached. Some things seem lessened by all 
attempts to make their greatness more than self-evident ! Look 
at it, then, and mourn ; that broken bond of brotherhood in the 
family of Jesus ! 

2. And then, that wound in the Body of Christ! Which 
of us would love to drag about a wounded, bleeding, almost 
fainting body 1 Who could do his day's work well in such a 
state — lame, weak, tottering 1 Life-blood is flowing from the 
Body of Christ. It hath not half its proper strength. It moves 
feebly and slowly. It doth not well transact Christ's day's 
work on the world's great harvest-field ! It is sad to think 
on the wounds in this Body of Christ ! 

3. Besides ; schisms feed infidelity. This is specially true 
in many parts of our land. The mere natural heart loves not 
to coin, or pay, much money for the Gospel. In a single vil- 
lage, one thousand souls feel t>ut lightly the care of one true 
minister of Christ ; but, if divided and called to care for four, 
of jarring names, the burthen presses weightily ; and the natu- 
ral heart eases itself by stepping out from under it, and leaving 
it to press more weightily still on the few who remain. Thus, 
in time, many natural hearts, who might otherwise have been 
reconciled and saved, ease themselves, by stepping aside and 
walking in none of the ways of the Church. Then steps in 
among them the specious, covert infidel, who preaches for 
nothing, poisons them with his nothingisms, and finally gathers 
and bands them into a synagogue of Satan ! Behold the 
source of much of the rampant infidelity of our poor country ! 

4. Moreover; schisms throw great advantages on the side of 
errors and all superstitions. Errors thrive while the friends 
of truth are rent asunder by divisions; and superstitions grow 
when truth itself is hidden amid the dust of contests. Such is 



144 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

the present condition of the Christian world. Errors seem to 
thicken on every hand ; and superstition, with its serried ranks 
ne'er broken, draws thousands from our divided hosts. Men love 
repose ; and, naturally, feel little horror either of religious errors, 
or of religious darkness. If, therefore, truth shine not clear and 
calm ; if there be always dust, and strife, and separations about 
it, they indolently seek refuge in notions which are quietly 
false, or sentimentally shelter themselves under superstitions, 
which are tranquilly dark. False religion is more agreeable 
to the natural heart than the true ; and if Christians slay not 
the spirit of their schisms, and consent not to live together in 
love, and in the heart of their great common truths, nothing 
but miracles revived can keep victory from the side of error 
and superstition, or save the Church from being covered once 
again with the double palls of falsehood and of darkness. 

Such is a faint glimpse at the evils of schism. Out of them 
God doubtless brings some good ; perhaps He will yet bring 
the greatest. Contest and divisions about the truth certainly 
shew that some minds at least are alive and earnest in their 
thoughts about it ; and this may be supposed to prognosticate 
truth's final victory. And then, the various divisions in the 
Church may doubtless be set to»watch each other, so that none 
shall hide, corrupt, or mutilate the Gospel. Moreover, they 
do oft " provoke one another," if not " to love and good 
works," at least to zeal and great works. Still, let the wise 
God make what use of them He please, schisms, in themselves, 
are unspeakably evil ; and by the Bible itself we are taught to 
seek their cure. 

5. But what has all this to do with Episcopacy, or the min- 
istry of the Church 1 We shall see. If Episcopacy were the 
model of the ministry, left by apostles in the Church, and at 
first every where received ; and if, having this origin, it have 
also, as 1 have shown, Christ's virtual sanction, then voluntarily 
and needlessly to abandon it, is rashly to throw the Church 
into hazard of all the evils of schism. 

I say not that the mere lack of Episcopacy in the ministry 
is, in and of itself, or independently of its cause, a schism j but, 



schism: its cure. 145 

that the voluntary and needless abandonment of the Episcopacy- 
endangers, and inevitably produces schism. Such a setting up 
of new and diverse models of the ministry unavoidably puts 
as many diverse masses of members upon saying again, " I am 
of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ ;" 
and, out of these contests, it breeds all that I have spoken of 
as mischievous and full of evil. A loss of the Episcopacy, or 
even of all ministry, so far as the ministry comes by the hand 
of human ordination, is not the loss of the Church itself: for 
the ministry is in the Church, and not the Church in the min- 
istry. But, Episcopacy having apostolic origin, adherence to 
it, where possible, is not a matter of mere expediency ; it is a 
matter of duty ; due to the cause of peace and order, and the 
Church's rule. 

III. But, if such be the evils of schism, and such the way in 
which they have grown, in part not in whole, from an aban- 
donment of the apostolic model of the ministry ; it is of high 
importance to settle, so far as we may, the question ; How 
may these evils be cured 1 

In asking this question, I now take these evils and their 
cause as facts. I go not back to the inquiry ; Who made all 
our schisms ! It is enough to know that they have been made 
by many hands, and with many motives ; that a departure from 
the Episcopacy is but one among a thousand of this evil's 
springs ; that, in many if not most of the schisms which have 
happened, both sides have been more or less in fault ; and that, 
in some cases, the separation has been justifiable, in so far as it 
has been forced on the separating party not only as the lesser 
of two evils, but as the only possible resort, this side a traitor- 
ous abandonment of truth, of conscience, and of Christ. It 
is enough for us to know these things. Our main business is 
with the facts themselves, and not with their origin. The 
facts exist: they are evils; and yet, they are curable evils: 
How may they be cured 1 This is the only reasonable ques- 
tion now before us. 

To this question, then, I reply. They are to be cured, not 
by attempting to obliterate all the dividing lines, which have 
10 



146 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL, 

been drawn through the Church ; they are probably too deep 
ever to be obliterated in this world ; but by outliving, 0A r er- 
coming, and extinguishing the spirit, in which they were 
engendered, by which they are cherished, and from which 
they draw their chief power for mischief. In the view which 
the Bible gives of schism, as a rent, or wound in the Body of 
Christ, which is His Church, it is plain that we must cease to 
regard and speak of non-Episcopal communions as not belong- 
ing to the Visible Church. It is not by pronouncing this de- 
cision over them, while we ourselves are inquiring after a way 
of union with Rome, that this deep-seated evil in the Church is 
to be cured. In the first place, the decision itself, however 
fond some may be of uttering it, is unfounded, and does but 
imbitter those whom we ought to win. They are not out of 
the Church. The very schisms between them and us are in 
the Church. They are but the wounds in this visible Body of 
our Redeemer ; and the spirit, in which some treat these 
wounds, does but inflame them the more, or make them bleed 
the more profusely. And in the next place, the union with 
Rome, with the idea of which many have become so deeply 
enamored, does but provoke her derision, so long as we 
refuse to acknowledge her infallibility and to submit to her 
supremacy. This whole course, therefore, can but make us 
hated, or pitied, on the one side ; and despised, or ridiculed, 
on the other. We must quit it, or make the spirit, as well as 
the name of schism, indelible ! 

In looking on the visible Body of Christ, all wounded and 
weakened as it is, some act as if they thought its cure were to 
be effected by continually thrusting into its wounds the rough 
and rusty irons of their exclusive and excluding claims. It 
will not do. It can but aggravate the evil, and bring on all 
but death. Were I to urge a remedy, it should be this. If 
these wounds are to be probed at all, let it be with nothing 
but the Spirit's soft and healing ray of Life : for the rest, let 
a mollifying preparation of kind offices and peaceful deeds be 
laid on, to remove all inflammation, and to induce a healing 
state. Then lay across the wounds the adhesive bands of love y 



schism : ITS CURE. 147 

draw the parts gently but closely together, and leave the in- 
ward, healing life of the spirit to perfect the blessed work. 
Then, the still remaining scar-lines from the name of schism 
would not be disfiguringly deep ; while the poison virulence 
of schism would all be gone ; the Body of Christ, whole and 
sound again ; its many parts and its many members, bound 
in living union, each helping each, and all made one in per- 
fect, generous, holy sympathy ! God send His Spirit from on 
high to speed this divine recovery of His Church ! 

In this mode of cure, I recommend no indifference to im- 
portant and distinctive truths and principles, even though they 
be not fundamental 5 no blending of other outward institutions 
with our own ; and no breaking down of our own, by way of 
showing our respect for others. What I mean is this j that 
every part of the Church should freely acknowledge that all 
the other parts belong, as really as itself, to the visible Body of 
Christ ; that each should then fill his providentially appointed 
lot with peaceful and toilfully active love ; and that all, with 
consenting prayer to God, should seek the residue of the Spirit 
in its fulness, and labor to " grow up into Christ in all things, 
which is the Head." This, I believe, is God's way to heal the 
wounds in His Church ; and, in this way, alone, can "the whole 
Body, fitly joined together and compacted by that, which every 
joint supplieth, make, in the measure of every single part, an 
increase of the Body unto the edifying of itself in Love." 

This gracious consummation the writer and his reader may 
never live to see. But it is not a chimera — a thing to be talked 
of, but not hoped for. It is God's purposed blessing to His 
Church. It waits to descend; and we may labor, and should 
seek to hasten, or to realize, its coming down. In doing so, 
we are drawing in a line with all God's plans and influences, 
and not at cross-purposes with both His Gospel and His Spirit. 
In all main, essential truths, all Christians may, as the apostle 
expresses the idea in a passage already quoted, " speak the 
same thing, and be perfectly joined together in the same mind 
and in the same judgment." Perfect uniformity of opinion in 
all things, especially in all things touching outward institutes, 



148 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

was never intended of God, and can never be enforced, or 
secured by man. The great, vital sun-truths of the Gospel, — 
these are the only ones that can be made to shine, in the main, 
alike on all minds ; and it is by feeling the shining of these 
alone, made quickening by the Holy One, that all Christians 
can be melted into the oneness of love, and made fruitful in 
the blessings of peace and truth. 

In my next discourse, I hope to close what I have yet to 
say of this whole subject, so far as it embraces the argument 
for the true comprehension of the Church. 



DISCOURSE X. 



" Many members, yet but one Body." — I Cor. xii ; 20. 



This may be considered as one of the most universal defini- 
tions of the Church of Christ, whether in its inward and 
spiritual, or in its outward and visible being. In both aspects, 
it is " many members, yet but one Body. 

In my last discourse, I spoke of schism, as a sad and disturb- 
ing fact, existing in the Church. I feel that it would not be 
right to close the argument on the comprehension of the Church 
without speaking of Unity also, as a blessed and binding fact, 
co-existing in the Church. That there is such a thing as the 
Unity of the Church, none will doubt 5 for it is involved in 
the very idea of the Church. Christ, the Head, prayed for it 
in His last great intercessory prayer on earth ; when He asked 
for His disciples, in all places and through all time, " that they 
all may be One 5 as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, 
that they also may be one in us."* And that prayer has never 
returned into His bosom void. It went up to be answered, not 
to be denied 5 and it has been answered, and to the end shall con- 
tinue un-denied. This unity belongs to the whole subject, 
which I have been examining ; the true comprehension of the 
Church. In this comprehension, the Church necessarily em- 
braces her own Unity. 

But what is this Unity % This is the great question of our 
age j and it is a question, upon which, as it seems to me, the 

•John, xviij 21. 



150 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

discussions of the age are bringing darkness rather than light. 
I pray God for his grace, that some one may bring it, if not 
into perfect light, at least out of the thick darkness. Whether 
the present effort, shall contribute towards this latter result, 
will all depend on the vouchsafement of His heavenly guid- 
ance. 

Unity, then, may be considered as an attribute both of the 
Spiritual and of the Visible Church. ' 

1. It is an attribute of the Spiritual Church ; of the true and 
holy Church Catholic, of which I have spoken so much. And 
this, as I conceive, is, in its highest, fullest sense, the unity for 
which Christ prayed, on the occasion already referred to. It 
is that unity, which in the one living Body, the one tv Com- 
munion of Saints," binds every true believer to Christ, the' 
Divine Head, by the bond of the one, true Scriptural faith ; a 
faith shewing its vitalizing life in one, holy, universal love. 
This blessed unity has never been broken. It lies above the 
reach, and therefore beyond the touch, of earth's disturbing 
causes. In its very essence this unity is indestructible. In 
the spiritual bond, by which it unites the soul with her Savior, 
and the Christian to his brother Christian ; it is as intangible 
by the hand of outward events as the soul herself is by the 
hand of Death ! I repeat, it is above the reach of such dis- 
turbing causes. It is linked with the life that is " hid with Christ 
in God." This unity is like the one, deep-starred heaven, 
above the clouds and storms of earth. Get above these ele- 
ments, and what do we see 1 The one great heaven, thick- 
studded with separate star-worlds ; the countless congregation 
of heaven's radiances, looking down in the bfendings of one 
sweet, noiseless, and most pure brightness upon our dark state : 
the one, vast, upward Deep, lying calm, silent, moveless, and 
unbroken above the earth, its clouds, and its storms. The 
winds, and lightnings, and thunders, and volcanic fires, and 
earthquake throes, which appal our senses, may, from time to 
time, agitate the nether surface of that high blue sea; but 
they have not power to roll up and break that one eternal calm 
of heaven-light, in which it lies. Great emblem of the unity 
of Christ's one, holy Catholic Church ! Many lights in but 



UNITY. 151 

one heaven ! " Many members in but one Body !" A sea 
of life, whose clear depths penetrate upwards unto God ; and 
whose downward surface can never be more than rippled by 
the mistakes, misunderstandings, and consequent un-harmonies 
of true Christian brethren ! 

This unity, because thus spiritual, is not therefore unreal. 
Every true believer lives in it daily, and daily enjoys its verity. 
Ask him whether the controversies, agitations, and schisms, 
which make earth so unquiet, ever break, or touch the bond 
which binds him to Christ, or the tie which ties him to any 
known brother in Christ. Ask him, and he will answer, — 
" Thank God, this is a thing which no hand can reach but 
God's hand ; and which even His hand reaches but to strengthen 
»and to perfect !" "Wherever, and to whomsoever, among the 
great company of the faithful, that question is asked, this will 
be the answer ; and in this answer comes a living demonstra- 
tion of the truth, that Christ's last, great prayer, went up to be 
heard, has been heard, and shall be heard ever ; " that they all 
may be one ; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that 
they also may be one in us." 

Upon this unity, however, after what has been said touching 
that holy Church in which it resides, it is not necessary to 
dwell. The difficulty of this part of the subject lies elsewhere, 
as we shall see, when we come to my second remark. I 
observe, then, 

2. Unity is an attribute even of the Visible Church. This 
unity, however, bears but an analogy with that of which I 
have just spoken. That it exists, I firmly hold. I believe 
that Christ's prayer has been answered to even His Visible 
Church. This Church, too, though it consist emphatically of 
" many members," is yet " but one Body." To see the truth of 
this, it will be desirable to explain in what this visible unity 
does not consist ; and then, in what it does consist. First, 
then : 

I. In what the Unity of the Visible Church does not consist. 

1. It does not consist, and was never designed to consist, in 
the subjection of all the members to one temporal head. The 
Romanist's plea in favor of the unity, here denied, is but one 



152 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

great, and baseless assumption. Even if the fiction of St. 
Peter's primacy, in the College of Apostles, could be con- 
verted into a fact, it would make nothing towards the conclu- 
sion, that the unity of the Church consists in acknowledging 
him, or any other human being, as temporal head of the Church. 
The Church is a Body ; and as a body, has but one head, in 
heaven, or on earth ; it is not a Two-headed body. The Apos- 
tles have eminence among the members of the Body ; but 
they themselves are in the Church, only because they are 
"set in that Body," which, as one whole, is all united to its 
one Head, Christ. Even, therefore, if there were such a thing 
as a primate among the Apostles, this would not constitute him 
temporal head of the Church, but only chief of the Apostles. 
Nor would it make the unity of the Church consist in being* 
united to him ; for the members of the body ecclesiastical are 
no more united to the apostolic eye than they are to the ple- 
beian foot. Its unity consists in this ; that it is all one Body, 
under one Head, Christ. The first Christians, indeed, " con- 
tinued in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship :" and so must 
all Christians. To reject the Apostles' " doctrine," is to reject 
the whole Gospel ; and to renounce their " fellowship," is to 
renounce " the Communion of Saints ;" and he, who does 
either the one or the other of these, is no Christian, and, of 
course, not in the Church. But, we may "continue in the 
Apostle's doctrine," and in their " fellowship," too, without 
acknowledging any one of them, or any alleged successor of 
that one, as temporal head of the Church, even on the suppo- 
sition that that one was primate over the rest. But there was no 
such primate. The Apostles were official equals. The theory, 
therefore, of a temporal head of the Church, is based on a 
double fallacy, and the Romanist's idea of unity is a double 
fiction. 

Such a visible unity never has been, and never will be. 
The theory, on which it is based, is utterly irreconcilable with 
fact, no less than with argument. The Visible Church of 
Christ has never acknowledged one temporal head j and it 
never will. Nearly two thousand years of Christian history 
have put the realization of the idea among impossibilities. 



VISIBLE UNITY. 153 

Such an external unity, it is true, once came near being re- 
alized ; but, the nearer it came, the more corrupt and dead 
grew the Church, till, at length, it became a great kingdom of 
this world, whose manifested life was but intense spiritual 
death ! Could such a unity be ever effected, could Rome's 
dream be ever made a fact, — a permanent fact over all the 
earth, — who can doubt that it would virtually give " the god 
of this world " a life-lease of its kingdoms in Christ's name 1 

The worst evils,, that have ever fallen on the temporal 
state of the Church, have resulted from Rome's attempts to en- 
force this external unity, this universal submission to one tem- 
poral head. Blood, and fire, and earth-embroiling contests, 
have certified that the Church was not made for such submis- 
sion. Even christianized humanity, as the holiest visible hand 
of God, fights against such a unity, and hath broken its begun 
fabric in pieces, like a potter's vessel, whereof the sherds can- 
not be put together. 

2. Again: the unity of the Visible Church does not consist 
in subjection to one universal form of Church government, and 
ecclesiastical law, as administered by men. The only supreme 
government in the Church is Christ's ; and the only supreme 
law is His Word. All other government and law are not of the 
Church's being, but only of her greater or less well-being. They 
may, therefore, be modified, or changed, without touching the 
essential unity of the Church. As a nation may have different 
forms of government indifferent ages; or different forms, at the 
same time, over its different parts ; and yet be, all the while, but 
one nation; provided, in the latter case, all the parts acknowl- 
edge one supreme authority ; so is it in the Church. The cen- 
'tral and supreme authority of Christ and His Word preserves 
its unity, notwithstanding the diversities in the forms of sub- 
ordinate government, which prevail. Change of government 
may amount to revolution ; and revolution may be fraught 
with unspeakable evils ; but they do not destroy the body, 
whether secular or ecclesiastical, in which they occur. It re- 
mains true, then, that what constitutes the Church one, what 
makes its unity, is not a universal submission to one form of 
ecclesiastical government and law. 



154 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

3. Once more : the unity of the Visible Church does not 
consist in a universal subordination to one form of the ministry. 
The ministry itself, as we have seen, is not of the essence, but 
only of the order and fulness, of the Church ; as the eye, ear, 
and hand are not essential to the being, but only to the com- 
pleteness and perfectness of the body. The universal preva- 
lence, therefore, of one form of the ministry cannot be that, in 
which the unity of the Visible Church consists ; that, which 
constitutes this Church one Body. It may be requisite to the 
harmony, and the best welfare, of this Church ; to that state, 
in which there shall be " no schism in the Body ;" but not to 
the existence of the Body itself. The Body may really be 
one, though in a very wounded, and a very weakened state. 
Rejection of what we believe to have been the apostolic model 
of the Christian ministry may prove the severest wound, which 
the visible Body of Christ can receive, compatibly with its 
continuance in life. And yet, that it may be received com- 
patibly with such continuance we see, by what we regard as 
sad, melancholy experience. The Protestant Reformation, on 
the Continent of Europe, one of the greatest facts in the Church 
since the time of Christ, would be an unsolvable enigma on 
the contrary supposition. By what may be considered an un- 
avoidable necessity, in the order of God's Sovereign Provi- 
dence, that Reformation resulted in a local loss of the Episco- 
pacy from the ministry. To say that God was concerned, not 
merely in permitting, but in producing that Reformation j that 
He produced it by the agencies of old sent down to the earth, 
by His Spirit and His Word ; and that He did it to give a new 
era to the whole Church by reviving her almost extinct spirit- 
ual life, and by giving action to causes, which must finally 
throw off all error and all superstition from the heritage of 
Christ 5 is but to assert what is as plain as that God had an 
agency in creating the worlds. That Reformation was God's 
work upon His own Church, and with His own peculiar instru- 
mentalities. And yet, as I have said, it resulted in a local 
loss of the Episcopacy from the ministry ; and it may result in 
the loss of some portions of Protestantism even from the 
Church. That is ; some portions of Protestantism may yet go 



VISIBLE UNITY. 155 

so far, if they have not already, as to reject the whole " doc- 
trine and fellowship" both of the Apostles and of Christ, and 
thus die off from the Church as a branch sometimes dies and drops 
from the tree, on which it grew. But, non-Episcopal Protestant- 
ism itself, spreading over the wide earth, and carrying with it 
some of the best life and activities of Christ, His Spirit, and 
His Truth, is part of the one Visible Church and Body of Christ ; 
and a living proof that the oneness, the unity, of this Church 
cannot consist in a universal subordination of all the members to 
one form of the ministry. The loss of the Episcopacy, we con- 
sider a great loss ; and for what purpose permitted, we cannot yet 
divine : but to say that it has cast non-Episcopal Protestantism 
out of the Visible Church, is to be a bold man in charging God, 
and in overstepping our own highest Standards. 

II. In what, then, does the unity of the Visible Church con- 
sist 1 I answer: It consists in professed subjection to Christ, 
the one Divine Head of this Visible Church. It consists in 
being thus the One, and universal Body, or company of Christ's 
professed followers in all the earth. The unity of the Visible 
Church resides in the outward profession and maintenance, 
every where, of that which really constitutes the unity of the 
true, spiritual and holy Church Catholic. The unity of this 
Spiritual Church consists, as we have seen, in truly having 
" one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism : " — " One Lord, " Christ 
Jesus, as the living Head : " One Faith," the whole revealed 
Word believed with the heart, as the vital bond which ties 
every believer to that Head : and " One Baptism, " the Bap- 
tism of the Holy Ghost, as that which puts the breathing of a 
, divine life into the whole Body so constituted and united. The 
unity of the true, Spiritual Church consists in really having 
these divine things. The unity of the Visible Church consists 
in outwardly professing them, though, in reality, all the mem- 
bers have them not. This Visible Church is one Body, because 
it everywhere professes the " one Lord, one Faith, one Bap- 
tism," without which there is no Church. Whoever, as an in- 
dividual, or as a community, utterly casts off this " one Lord, 
one Faith, and one Baptism," is thereby cut off from even the 
Visible Church : and whoever, individually or collectively, 



156 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

professes this " one Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism," is 
thereby incorporated into this Church, and there makes a part 
of the one visible Body of Christ. The Spiritual Church 
really has and enjoj^s these things, and is thereby one. The 
Visible Church outwardly professes them, and is thereby one, 
though all its members do not have and enjoy the reality which 
they profess. The unity of each has reference to the same 
elementary, constituent principles, without which there can be 
no Church, spiritual or visible. The unity of the one is di- 
vine and perfect ; the unity of the other is but analogical and 
imperfect. 

Such, then, being the oneness of the Visible Church, it is 
obvious that many things may disturb, and deeply wound, its 
union or harmony, without thereby destroying its unity. This 
is the difference between unity and union. u The unity and 
entity of the Church," says Bishop Hall, " can no more be di- 
vided than itself." To destroy the unity of the Body is to de- 
stroy the Body itself. But the union of the Church may be 
broken. This is not infrangible. This may be broken with- 
out destroying the Body. Unity is that which makes a thing 
one. Union is that which makes several things agree in one. 
Union is the harmony of parts. In the Visible Church, 
it is easy to see how this harmony may be broken, without de- 
stroying the Church's oneness. It has been broken, sadly 
broken — till this Church has become like a family agitated by 
intestine broils. But, its unity remains. It is still the one, 
great, visible family of Christ on earth ; and, what is more, its 
union, its harmony, may yet be restored. Perhaps, when we 
consider the passions and interests of men, and the mixture of 
all things human in this Visible Church, the wonder ought to 
be that its discords have not been greater, rather than that they 
have been so great. And now, to gather up some things from 
our subject : 

1. The view, which has been taken throws light on the 
question about returning to the unity of the Church. Chris- 
tians are not to return to visible unity under one temporal 
head. There is not and never has been any such unity. Nor 
are they necessarily to return to visible unity under one form 
of ecclesiastical government and law. Such subordination is 



RETURNING TO UNITY. 157 

not essential to the real oneness of the Body. Nor, however 
fervently we may pray for it, are they necessarily to return to 
visible unity under one form of the Christian ministry. Under 
the providence of God, this subordination may, or may not, be 
restored. To what, then, are they to return 1 As we express 
the idea in our " prayer for all conditions of men," they are 
to return to " the unity of spirit in the bond of peace." This 
unity, or rather, this union, must be restored. It is necessary 
to the welfare of the Church. Without it, piety will remain 
stinted, and never grow to half its proper stature. Without it, 
prayer will continue weak, and never grasp on half the pro- 
mises. Without it, the Church's growth will be partial, and 
never compass half her destined heritage. The world, in its 
wants, calls for this return to union ; the Church, in her dis- 
tractions, calls for it : and God, in His Word, calls for it. Ay j 
and the three shall )*et have what they ask. The gracious 
power of God shall give it to the world, to the Church, and to 
Himself. The old world's jeers at the Visible Church's broils, 
are beginning to make Christians sick with sadness ; and (is it 
not God that inspires the faith 1) the healing of this sickness 
will come in the restoration of that sweet harmony, the viola- 
tion of which is so painfully felt. 

The questions, What is the Church 1 Where is it 1 How 
may I find it 1 are often suffered needlessly to disturb the 
tender conscience. They are often artfully pressed as though 
there were a thousand claimants to the character of the Church, 
and only one of them entitled to it ; and as though, amid their 
conflicting claims, each individual Christian must decide which, 
among them all, is the true Church, the only Church, the 
Church in which alone salvation is to be found. This, as we 
have viewed the subject, is an utterly false position. No soul 
has such an awful question as this to answer. The compara- 
tive claims of different Christian communities are not un-im- 
portant, but they can never grow to such a fearful weight as 
this. It is a weight which would press unnumbered souls into 
despair. The grand direction, needed for every one, is this : 
Find the Bible, find Christ, find the Holy Spirit, find the Bap- 
tism of the heart into the life " hid with Christ in God j" and 



158 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

then, confessing your Savior before men in the accessible way 
of His appointment, you have found His Church. His Church 
covers all Christians. 

2. But, the question, "What is the true, apostolic ministry of 
the Church'? is one of a different order. We believe this min- 
istry to have been Episcopal. Ignorance, unintentional mis- 
take, education, unavoidable Providences, may render others 
blameless in living without it ,* but nothing can make us 
blameless in renouncing it, save as this ministry itself renounces 
Christ and His Gospel, or imposes on our consciences terms of 
communion, which are clearly unscriptural. Whenever this 
ministry assumes either of these attitudes, the duty of submis- 
sion to it is lost in the higher duty of fidelity to Christ and His 
Truth. It is on this ground that our best writers have ever 
justified the separation of the European Continental Protes- 
tants from the Church of Eome, even though in that separation, 
they were unable to carry with them a Scriptural Episcopacy. 
The ministry was "set in the Body" for its health and wel- 
fare. Subserving these, it must be held. Proving utterly de- 
structive of these, it must be renounced ; for the Body, with 
Christ, its Head, is more than any member thereof, however 
eminent in place. If even the eye offend incurably, it must 
be plucked out. 

3. The view which has been taken, teaches another thing. 
While it is our duty, as Protestants, to mourn over the evils 
which rend the harmony of the Church, and to seek to enter 
livingly into the sorrows which these evils inspire in the heart 
of Christ ; it is still our privilege to rejoice in the true and 
holy unity, which pervades and binds all Christ's living mem- 
bers in His one Spiritual Church Catholic ; to cultivate, more- 
over, that " unity of spirit in the bond of peace," which 
should pervade and unite even His Visible Church; and to live, 
and labor, and sacrifice, each in his proper sphere, to spread 
the pure Gospel, the knowledge of the true Savior, over all 
the world. In this way, we shall do our best in bringing again 
the full mind of Christ upon all His followers ; till, as the 
light of the sun cometh down, and maketh a shining garment 
for the earth, so that mind, descending, shall inrobe His 



TEACHINGS FROM THE SUBJECT. 159 

Church, and make even her outer vestments glorious. Already 
u is the King's Daughter all glorious within." It is a cheer- 
ing thought that we may aid in bringing forward the time, 
when her very " clothing shall be of wrought gold ;" shining 
in the sweet harmonies of peace, love, and truth. 

4. Finally ; let every thing, which has been said, from be- 
ginning to end of this whole subject, come to this one point, as 
an enduring lesson to every single soul : The Church, in her 
best earthly estate, will save no man. If any man be ever saved, 
he will, indeed, be saved in the Church, and by the instru- 
ments, which Christ has put into her hands for use. Still, the 
Church alone will not save him ; she cannot save him. He 
must be saved, for himself, individually, by Christ, His Spirit 
and His Truth ; with as much of personal responsibility and 
watchfulness and care, as if he were alone in the world, with 
nothing but Christ, His Spirit, and His Truth, beside him. The 
grand heresy, which the present day is bringing back upon 
Protestantism, is, that, somewhere in the abstract being of the 
Church, there is laid up a deposit of spiritual life and grace, 
which she has power, of her own will, to dispense ; and that, 
to be a member of the Church is, somehow, wittingly or un- 
wittingly, to become a sharer in her rich treasure. It is a 
fatally perilous delusion. The Church has just so much 
spiritual life and grace in her, and no more ; as each member, 
for himself alone, draws personally from Christ, through the 
channels which Christ hath opened. The spiritual life and 
grace of the Church can never be other or greater than the 
simple aggregate of what each member thus brings into it, 
from the great Fountain-head of all. Happy, if every man 
would remember this truth ; if he would carry it with him 
every where, sleep on it, wake under it, live in it. The Church 
cannot save us ; Jesus Christ must save us ; thousands of the 
members of the Visible Church, it must be feared, have per- 
ished ; we shall perish, if we never attain to more than repu- 
table membership in this Church. 

In dismissing now the argument on the comprehension of the 
Church, a word personal to the writer may be permitted. He is 
not, then, indifferent to what may be said whether of himself or 



160 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

of what he has advanced. Yet, has he not been governed herein 
by any reference to such notices. He has written, because he felt 
it his duty to exhibit what he believes to be, at all times, and es- 
pecially at the present, most important truths. Those to whom 
it has been his privilege to proclaim the Gospel, will bear him 
witness, that it is not his wont to dwell, with great frequency, 
on the special subject of the Church. Ordinarily, " Christ 
and Him crucified" is and must be his main theme. The 
present, however, are no ordinary times. Our Church, both 
in this, and in her mother country, has in her bosom those 
who are avowedly seeking to put out the light of her Protes- 
tantism. Under such circumstances, every minister within her 
pale is bound to speak out, honestly and fully, and to let his 
people know where he stands, and towards what he is driving. 
If they are to be led away from the Protestant faith of their 
fathers, it is but right that they should be led with their eyes 
open, and with their own consent. Regardfully of these obli- 
gations of the clergy and this right of their people, the author 
has acted in what he has now, at some length, propounded. 
To his Master and his conscience, he could not feel justified in 
withholding what he has written. His children and immediate 
parishioners, at least, if not the Church at large, must know 
his whole heart on this subject. The grave charges, usually 
urged against those who write as he has written, will, perhaps, 
justify him in the egotism of saying that he is, by conviction, as 
w T ell as in affection, an Episcopalian. He was born and nur- 
tured in the full discipline of the American Episcopal Church. 
He loves it, and doubts not he shall love it unto death. But, he 
humbly hopes that, "by the grace of God," he has a still higher 
designation. He is a Christian ; and, as such, can never sink, in 
the mere Churchman, the regards, which he owes to all, who 
belong to Christ. He is also a Protestant Christian $ and can 
never look with other than feelings of unfeigned alarm at every 
step which our Protestantism may take, in retracing its way, 
even though it be unconsciously, towards the errors, which were 
renounced, before heaven and earth, on the morning of the great 
Reformation. He wages no personal contest. He denies no man 
the right of forming and spreading his own judgments on the 



TEACHINGS FROM THE SUBJECT. 161 

points discussed. He stands on principle ; and, claiming the 
same rights which he allows, on his own principles he must 
stand openly. If others can, in the main, stand with him, he 
will rejoice. But, with many or alone, so he stands ; and, with 
his best prayers and labors for this, our Zion upon earth, will 
hope so to stand, till called to share the glory of the true Zion 
in Heaven. 

Oh ! the glory of that upper Church ! To writer and reader, 
be that the home of our highest, holiest love. Let all live in 
longings for it ; and, to the language of our sweet hymn, let 
all train the daily utterances of their hearts : 

Mother of cities ! o'er thy head 
Bright peace, with healing wings outspread, 
For evermore shall dwell i 

Let me, blest seat ! my name behold 
Among thy citizens enroll'd, 
And bid the world farewell ! 



11 



PART III. 



VIEWS 



OF 



THE GOVERNMENT AND WORSHIP 



OF 



THE CHURCH. 



DISCOURSE XI. 



,( Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves." 

Heb. xiii ; 17. 



Having finished the argument on the true comprehension of 
the Church Universal, both in its spiritual and in its visible 
aspect, I might here close my work. Before doing so, how» 
ever, I will add a few remarks upon two other topics, which, 
though they belong not strictly to the comprehension, are yet 
connected with the general subject, of the Church. We shall 
be led to one of them by a remark or two on the passage from 
Heb. xiii 5 17. 

" Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit your- 
selves." This language refers to ecclesiastical, not to civil 
rule : for, as the Apostle immediately adds of those, who have 
this rule, " They watch for your souls as they that must give 
account." Civil rulers are not appointed to " watch for 
souls." This office is peculiar to the rulers of the Church. 

The language also refers to lawful, constituted rule ; and 
not to authority arbitrarily assumed, or accidentally acquired. 
Those who "have this rule," have it rightly. It is a rule, 
which the members of the Church may be called upon to 
11 obey." As we learn, in the first Epistle to the Corinthians ; 
" God hath set some in the Church : first, Apostles ; secondarily, 
prophets ; thirdly, teachers.* The institution itself of a Chris- 

* I Cor. xii 5 28. 



166 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

tian ministry is divine ; more emphatically so than that of 
civil government. If, in the latter, " the powers that be are 
ordained of God," more especially so are they in the former. 

Again : " the rule," or authority, here mentioned, was not 
vested in one, but in several. The words are, not, " Obey 
him that hath the rule over you," but " obey them that have 
the rule;" and the plain implication is, that when this was 
written, there was no one acknowledged temporal head of the 
Church. Its government was then vested in a body of men, 
more or less numerous. Thus far, the remarks on this passage 
admit of no qualification : they imbody unquestionable truths. 

But, when we inquire further ; whether the authority, here 
recognized, was vested in an order of ministers of a superior 
grade, having lower orders of the ministry under them, and 
governing the Churches under their care, according to Christ's 
laws ; as in an Episcopacy: or was vested in a ministry, con- 
stituted on the principle of parity, having no inferior orders, 
and ruling the Church by their joint counsels; as in Presbyte- 
rianism : or was vested in each separate and equal pastor, 
ruling his own charge independently of other pastors ; as in 
Congregationalism : the passage before us does not decide. It 
simply decides that there is in the Church a divinely constituted 
authority, or government ; and that this authority is exercised, 
not by one, but by a plurality of ministers. 

Our claim, as I formerly observed, is, that, " from the Apos- 
tles' times," the government of the Church has had its base on 
the Episcopal platform ; and my object in this discourse will 
be to examine the chief advantages of an Episcopacy in the 
discipline of the Church of Christ. At the apostolic origin of 
Episcopacy, as the constitution of the Christian ministry, I 
have already glanced. I shall not, therefore, resume that 
topic ; and even in treating of the advantages of Episcopacy, 
as an institution of government in the Church, the bounds 
which I have set to the present series, will oblige me to limit 
my examination to the principal only of these advantages. 

Before entering on the proposed examination, however, I 
wish to throw off from the subject certain extraneous matters, 
by which it would be embarrassed. 



GOVERNMENT. 167 

Connected, then, with the Christian ministry, as an institu- 
tion, and originating from some fruitful source, there has doubt- 
less been a tendency to augment its true power, and to diminish 
the just influence of the popular element in the Church. So, 
on the contrary, especially since the Reformation, there has 
been, in connexion with the popular element, and originating 
in a similar source, a tendency to enlarge its proper sphere of 
action, and to diminish the just influence of the ministry. 
"What have been termed the usurpations of the priesthood, on 
the one hand, and what we have seen of popular extravagances, 
on the other, render illustration of these remarks needless. 
It is more to my purpose to add that, as to their fruitful source, 
both the tendencies mentioned have sprung — not out of the 
Christian ministry itself, nor out of the true genius of a Chris- 
tian people, but — out of a corrupt human nature, and the cir- 
cumstances in which it has been placed ; and that, under the 
actual circumstances of the case, those tendencies would have 
developed themselves, under any form which the ministry 
could have assumed, and under any type, short of a vastly 
higher sanctification, into which a Christian people could have 
been molded. 

Again : looking upon Episcopacy as the original constitution 
of the ministry, the comparatively later power of Popery, on 
the one hand, has tended to degrade Bishops below their primi- 
tive rank of independence and equality with each other ; 
while on the other hand, the popular element, since its devel- 
oped activity, has tended to annihilate the Episcopal office 
itself. But, neither with these tendencies has my subject any 
concern, save, as in the former case, that of ascribing them to 
their true cause. They are the tendencies of our corrupt 
nature, under the circumstances, of which history takes note ; 
and not of a Christian ministry, and a Christian people, in 
themselves considered. 

In treating of the advantages of Episcopacy, I must be al- 
lowed to mean a pure, or simple Episcopacy. My subject has 
nothing to do with a Church monarchy, as in Papal Italy ; nor 
with a titled prelacy, as in Protestant England ; nor with a 
corrupt and worldly body of Bishops, as, in various countries, 



168 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

may have existed ; nor with here and there a monster of wick- 
edness, under a mitre ; as may, at times, have been seen. These 
things belong not to Episcopacy itself. They are but historic 
incidents which, amid the changes of human society, and out 
of the workings of a depraved nature, have been superadded 
to Episcopacy. Any form of the Christian ministry, in human 
hands and in human society, is liable to abuse. Presbyterian- 
ism and Congregationalism, in such hands and amid such influ- 
ences, may be as ambitious, as oppressive, and as corrupt as 
any other form of the ministry. 

Why — the inquiry is pertinent here — why have we heard 
more of such evils in an Episcopacy, than in any other form 
the Christian ministry 1 And the answer is equally pertinent : 
Because, in all ages since the Apostles, and in all countries 
throughout Christendom, the Church has, for the most part, 
been under Bishops as its chief ministers. There has been 
little but an Episcopacy to meet and endure the deforming 
and corrupting influences of human society and of historic 
events. Episcopacy has come down to us through the strug- 
gles of the ages among the nations of the earth. It has come 
down through the disorders which attended the decline of the 
Roman Empire ; through the devastations which accompanied 
the irruptions of the barbarian hordes j through the supersti- 
tions (heathen in origin), which sprang up during mediaeval 
darkness 5 through the influences which molded it during the 
Feudal ages, and under the Feudal systems ; through the blood, 
and fires, and fearful excitements of the great Reformation ; 
through the fierce contests, in England, between a political 
Church establishment and strenuous Puritan dissent ; and 
finally, in our own land, through the hot passions and preju- 
dices, engendered by our severance from foreign rule, as well 
Ecclesiastical as Political.* Into all these dreadful strifes and 
changes of the ages and nations of Christendom — springing, as 



* As the union of the Church with the State at the conversion of Constantine j 
the introduction of heathen superstitions into the Christian Body ; the power of 
the Feudal system ; and the influence of the Middle Ages generally, tended to 
corrupt the Ancient Episcopacy ; so the terrible excitements of the Reformation, 
of the Putitan struggle, and of our own American Revolution; have doubtless 



GOVERNMENT. 169 

they have done, out of the all-controlling movements of the 
world — Episcopacy has been carried by the resistless current, 
along which human destiny has been tending. Those strifes 
and changes mark the steps in the slow but sublime movement 
of human society towards a higher and more perfect civiliza- 
tion. They have stamped on the character and institutions of 
men, lines and features, so deep, that centuries have not been 
able to efface the impressions j and I think it safe to say, that 
any form of the Christian ministry, coming down, for nearly 
two thousand years, through the same series of changes and of 
influences, would have developed evils and abuses, if not iden- 
tical, at least equal, with those which have been exhibited in 
the descent of the ancient Episcopacy to our times. Under 
any other constitution of the ministry, nothing could have 
prevented the result, but Pentecostal displays of grace, per- 
petuated from age to age, and making the Church the resistless 
molder of the world's character, instead of leaving the world 
to act, in reality, as a potent modifier of the character of the 
Church 5 and with such displays of grace (had God seen it 
wise to vouchsafe them), the ancient Episcopacy itself would 
have come down unabused and unharmed j and the out- 
cry from the mouth of the world, and the record from the 
pen of history, against the abuses, to which it has been subject, 
would have been unheard and unwritten. From the close of 
the second, to that of the eighteenth century, Episcopacy has 
been subjected to the severest of tests and carried through the 
most pernicious of influences. During the reign of those long 
ages it was never, as a whole, in a position favorable to the 
development of its true character, and the exertion of its true 
power, uncorrupted and unfettered.* 

tended to confirm those corruptions ; on the principle, that what is fiercely and 
bloodily assailed, seeks, as men are naturally constituted, to defend and preserve 
itself; and thereby takes the deeper root in the soil, from which its eradication 
is sought. 

* The remarks of Scott, on the abuses of civil government in England, apply, 
with equal force, to those of Ecclesiastical government in all countries : — 

a In our happy land," says he, " the advantages derived from civil govern- 
ment, are immense ; our grievances comparatively minute, and often imaginary j 
and rather the fault of human nature, than of our constitution or public adminis- 



170 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

We must, therefore, set aside from the subject all the consid- 
erations to which I have adverted, and look at Episcopacy 
in its own proper character, as a constitution of the Christian 
ministry on the basis of an imparity of orders, and securing 
to the highest of those orders the chief, though not the sole, 
place of rule, or authority, in the Church. "We must look at 
Episcopacy such as it ought to he ; such as it was designed to 
be 5 and such as, in various times and places, it has been, 
humble and holy ; world-renouncing and laborious ; and 
amid all, ruling the Church according to Christ's laws. I 
say, "according to Christ's laws ;" for though the Church has 
power to make other regulations for the outward order of wor- 
ship, for the transaction of business, and for the management of 
temporalities, provided these regulations are harmonious, or 
not inconsistent, with the Scriptures; yet, any government, 
whether in Episcopal or other hands, which attempts to rule the 
Church, in spiritual matters, on the basis of any other laws than 
those, which Christ has left, is a usurpation, a tyranny, unlaw- 
ful in the sight of God. I repeat, then, we must look at Epis- 
copacy as it ought to be, as it was designed to be, and as it of- 
ten has been ; imbued with the mind of Christ, and ruling the 
Church according to the laws of Christ. Instances of such an 
Episcopacy have been, both in individuals and in Communi- 
ties ; and it is but right to look at a thing in itself, and not at 
the abuses, of which it has incidentally been the subject. It 
may be laid down as a maxim, that, when they fall into wick- 
ed hands, the best things have the worst abuses. Hence, that 
best of rules, of " doing all things to the glory of God," has 
been practically abused to sanctify the most dreadful enormi- 
ties, even to the blood and fires, the racks and brain-destroying 
tortures of the Inquisition ! 

And now, to enter directly on the subject proposed : the 

tration. For speculators on this subject (even such as profess to believe the 
doctrine of man's entire depravity) almost universally blame this or the other 
form of government for those evils, which are in fact inseparable from fallen 
nature : and they expect that benefit from the change of forms or persons, which 
can only be produced by the renovation of men's hearts to the holy image of 
God, and the mortification of that inordinate self-love and idolatrous love of the 
world, which are universal to mankind." — [Com. on Rom. xiii 3 1 — 7.] 



GOVERNMENT. 171 

two main functions of the Christian ministry are, to govern the 
Church by the discipline of Order, and to rule it by the disci- 
pline of Truth : in other words, scriptural government, and 
scriptural teaching. When these two things are adequately 
secured, the Church is in its best earthly state. 

1. Let us, then, in the first place look at Episcopacy as a 
Government ; a discipline of Order. 

Government is a necessary function of the Church universal. 
Though no one form, or constitution of government can be 
used as a mark, by which to ascertain the comprehension of 
the Church, yet, in its visibility, no part of the Church has 
ever been without some such form or constitution. The very 
fact of an ecclesiastical organization implies the existence, and 
rests on the necessity, of a government in the Church. 

The main advantage of a simple Episcopacy, in governing the 
Church, becomes manifest in its centralizing, uniting tendency. 
A Bishop, in his true character, appears — not as a mere man 
in the ministry, who by peculiar personal qualities, or by ac- 
cidental circumstances, has acquired superior influence, and is 
thus, perhaps, an object of jealousy, or envy ; but — as the 
regularly constituted, and cheerfully acknowledged head of 
the clergy and people under his care. He is — (and in our 
own country, he is by their own choice), — in an office, which 
they regard as having come down from the Apostles ; and 
around which, therefore, cluster all their sentiments of filial 
reverence, and deferential regard. Their submission to his 
lawful rule is cordial j free, so far as our earthly lot will admit, 
from the human feelings of jealousy and envy. In this char- 
acter, the Episcopacy tends, — not to degrade the lower orders 
of the ministry, — they are its main helps in its labors for 
Christ; nor to depress the just influence of the popular ele- 
ment in the Church — on that it depends for concurrence and 
efficiency in those same labors ; — but, simply to act as a uniting 
centre to both the clergy and the people ; enforcing the rules 
of law and administering the discipline of government, pater- 
nally and wisely ; allaying dissensions and composing strifes, 
with the best prospect of cheerful acquiescence from both 
sides, and of keeping the whole body from the extremes of 



172 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

clerical encroachment on the one hand, and of popular c zcess 
on the other. The best interests, as well as the high duty, of 
such an Episcopacy lie in the harmony, peace and love of the 
whole body of clergy and people under its care. Ambitions, 
usurpations, stretches of power, are possible evils : but they 
are possible under all systems in the hands of human nature ; 
and would be as possible in a democracy of the Church, as they 
are found actually to be in a democracy of the State, They 
are the evils of our nature ; and no system can be kept entirely 
safe from their entrance. A simple, primitive Episcopacy is, 
doubtless, as safe from them as any other system, committed 
to the guardianship of men ; while its power t© promote har- 
mony, peace and love, in obedience to venerable and consti- 
tuted " rule," is manifold greater than that of any other, which 
can be named. 

Perhaps it will be objected, that the testimony of history is 
against this view ; and that, as it is often charged, the ancient 
Episcopacy naturally developed itself into the comparatively 
modern Papacy. 

To me this charge seems unsupported. What, — let me 
ask, — first transformed the simple, primitive Bishop into an 
Arch-bishop ; the Arch-bishop into a Patriarch, and finally the 
Patriarch into a Pope % Not, as I apprehend, the inherent 
tendency of the ancient Episcopacy itself ; but the adventitious 
circumstances, with which it became needlessly implicated. It 
is inconsistent with my plan to enter at large into the history 
of that development 5 but, I think it would be easy to demon- 
strate, from written facts, the following positions. 

The development of the Papacy commenced in the worldly 
and political influences, which were early introduced ; espe- 
cially at the conjunction between the Church and the State, 
consequent on the accession of Constantine the Great to the 
throne, and upon his real, or pretended conversion to Chris- 
tianity. He adopted Christianity, as the religion of his still, 
in the main, unconverted Empire ; and sought to make him- 
self to religion in the State, what the Bishop was to religion 
in the Church. That political conjunction was the great mis- 
fortune of the Christian ages. Yet, it was a misfortune in- 



GOVERNMENT. . 173 

curred, not by the inherent tendency of the ancient Episco- 
pacy, but, by the false views of an Emperor, but recently dis- 
enthralled from his dark bondage under heathenism. Thence- 
forward, and as long ages rolled by, the political influences of 
the State, identical then with those of the Church, working in 
all the great and influential cities of Christendom, and taking 
advantage of the superstitions engendered of darkness, rapidly 
favored the corruption of the ancient and simple Episcopacy j 
and expedited the passage of the, once laborious and suffering, 
holy and unambitious Bishop along his career, from one grade 
and title to another, and from one degree of political power 
to a higher j till finally, an office, which was at first held by a 
humble laborer and sufferer for Christ, came to be filled by a 
triple-crowned Monarch of the Church, to whom even Empe- 
rors were fain to pay homage. 

That the superstitions of the Church, to which I just now 
adverted, were contracted from the lingering and scarcely 
latent heathenism of the Roman Empire, while becoming, and 
after it became, nominally Christian ; it will not, I suppose, 
be by Protestants denied ; and, that it was through these su- 
perstitions mainly, that the simple Episcopacy of elder times 
became gradually corrupted, and the Bishop of Rome finally 
able to enforce his claim to universal jurisdiction ; this is a 
truth as little likely, in such a quarter, to be questioned. It 
was under favor of those growing superstitions that the ambi- 
tious prelates of that powerful and wealthy city were able to 
stretch prerogative after prerogative ; to secure from weaker 
prelates concession after concession j and to take, by the side 
of temporal princes, step after step, till at last the fortunate 
successor reached the summit, at which his predecessors had 
been aiming, and sate, — Pontifex Maximus, — acknowledged 
temporal and spiritual head of the Christian world ! 

The decay of intelligent and scriptural piety, consequent on 
those growing superstitions, must be named as the true secret 
of his success. Had the spirit of that piety continued to live, 
as in the first ages, it would have been impossible either to 
corrupt the ancient Episcopacy, or to place the foot of a Roman 
Bishop on the subject neck of Christendom. As a strong cor- 



174 . THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

roboration of this position, it may be remarked ; that, so soon 
as the spirit of that piety, intelligent and scriptural, not super- 
stitious and ascetic, began to revive at the dawning and the 
sunrise of the Reformation, the prerogatives and usurpations 
of the Pope began to be questioned ; that ultimately his iron 
yoke was broken off through all Protestant realms ; and that, 
in England, where the Reformation was conducted with closest 
reference to the primitive estate of the Church, primitive 
Episcopacy at once came forward, if not wholly in its proper 
character, at least to its proper post, and with but few varia- 
tions from its original ; abounding once more in wondrous 
laborers for Christ, and in wondrous martyrs for his Truth. 
The strength of the remark is still further increased by this 
consideration ; that nothing higher than Episcopacy was, or 
could be, retained in even the royally-favored Protestantism of 
England. Had the attempt been made, while reforming the 
Church of her doctrinal errors and corruptions in ceremony, 
to retain even the most modified allegiance, or subordination, 
to the Papacy in government, there can be no reasonable doubt 
that the religious feeling, which then awoke and lived in the 
light of the Bible and the Spirit, would have been roused to 
the extreme of resistance, and have swept away, not only the 
Papacy, but all traces of the Episcopacy itself. The Episco- 
pacy of England was the highest point, which the waters of that 
purifying flood could have left standing: so resistlessly does 
an enlightened and scriptural piety set against every form and 
modification of the Papal system. 

Moreover, with all the political and superstitious influences, 
and with all the amazing power of wealth, which I have men- 
tioned, and with which his mighty metropolis surrounded him, 
the Bishop of Rome did not succeed in fixing himself on that 
splendid pinnacle of his ambition, till after ages of desperate 
conflict with other Bishops of Christendom in their resistance 
to his unchristian claims. And even when he did finally suc- 
ceed, in despite of such resistance, it was not because he was 
Bishop, but because his see was Rome j the metropolis of the 
world ', the central heart of the power and wealth, and civil 
influence of a fatally corrupted empire. The idea, that an- 



GOVERNMENT. 175 

cient Bishops, prompted by the inherent tendency of their 
office, conspired, either openly or secretly, either consciously 
or unconsciously, to lift, or be the instruments of lifting, one 
of their own official equals, step by step, and age after age, to 
a throne and the tiara, is, to my mind, the wildest of chimeras. 
They struggled long and intensely against the strides of a 
mammoth power, in which Christian office had become blended 
with a strange concentration of all the baleful influences of 
this world. Suppose the Bishop of Rome had been but a 
Presbyter among Presbyters, with no Bishops on Earth ; yet, 
hy virtue of his peculiar position, a kind of successional mo- 
derator over brethren; a hereditary "primus inter pares" or 
first among equals ; I hold that the mighty influences of the 
ages through which his office must have passed down, would 
inevitably have made him a Pope, if not in name, yet in fact 
and in effect. The truth is, in their real, spiritual independence 
as official equals, Bishops are and ever have been, the most 
strenuous opponents of Popery ; and if they, with all the au- 
thority and influence of their ancient and venerated office, were 
unable to resist the strides of the politico-ecclesiastical giant 
in Rome, what could a less influential band of Church officers 
have done in their struggle with that evil genius of Christen- 
dom 1 No: this tendency to an augmentation of power, sprang 
not out of the ancient Episcopacy itself. Had the Church 
never been married to the State ; had political and pecuniary 
influence, favored by the superstitions of darkness, never sub- 
merged that simple and primitive institute beneath their cor- 
ruptions, the Papacy had never existed. Most of all things, 
and with the best of reasons, the Pope fears a spiritual, inde- 
pendent Episcopacy, filled with official equals.' Hence it is, 
that even that partial approach to such an Episcopacy, which 
is exhibited in the restored English Church, has ever been an 
object of State jealousy to the Church monarch at Rome. 
Were there no such Episcopacy in the world, Rome, I fear, 
would reign in comparative quiet and freedom from solicitude ; 
and her hope would sensibly brighten of once more wielding 
the sceptre of a universal temporal dominion. 

I think, then, I am safe in saying that Episcopacy did not, 



176 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

originally and from its own inherent tendency, develope itself 
into Popery ; and that it is not now, from itself, tending back 
to that extreme. I think we have said and seen enough, to 
make us receive, with strong confidence, the conclusions j that 
unsanctified human nature, under all circumstances, and par- 
ticularly under such as history records, does tend, violently, 
to the Papal corruption ; that political influence, when married 
into the Church, tends forcibly to the same result ; and that 
superstition and doctrinal error,* as we see with our own sad- 
dened eyes, may run, with unmatched velocity along the beaten 
track, both of our straying nature, and of a mere baptized 
political ambition ; but, that simple, primitive Episcopacy it- 
self is not plagued with this tendency more than any other 
pious and exemplary Christian ministry. In ruling the Church 
I consider such an Episcopacy the happiest mean, ever yet 
presented, between the Papal tyranny, on the one hand, and 
popular misrule, on the other. In its very nature, it has just 
the character, which fits it for such a central and centralizing 
position. Popery accumulates and absorbs power into itself ; 
the unrestrained popular element disperses and destroys it 5 a 
simple Episcopacy, while it represses both extremes, binds to- 
gether the Body of Christ's members in as much of harmony, 
peace, and love as are compatible with the lot of Christ's reli- 
gion in the hands of our common humanity. Our nature, 
both in individuals and in society, tends to extremes ; and 
when, with an enlarged and enlightened view, we look upon 
the ruinous character of the extremes, into which, on either 
hand, it has actually run. I think it must be evident, to all 
judicious minds, that the Church needs just such a centralizing 
influence in its ruling authority, as that, which was exhibited 
in the ancient Episcopacy, before blind worldly policy, aided 
by the baptized superstitions of Heathenism, gathered around 
it the trappings of earthly power, and place, and wealth ; and 
while, like its Master, and from simple love to Him and to the 
souls of men, it was willing to walk on its rounds of labor, and 



* Instances under this head it would be superfluous to cite, amid the publicity 
as well as frequency, to which, in our day, they have attained. 



GOVERNMENT. 177 

to be, in temporal things, more unprovided than the foxes in 
their holes, or the birds of the air in their nests. God hasten 
the day, when the spirit of the ancient institute shall return, 
not only in here and there a humble, holy Bishop; but in all, 
who bear his office ; and when, under their wise and paternal 
sway, the Church shall be ruled in harmony, peace, and love, 
according to the simple laws of Christ, and in all the prosper- 
ousness of spiritual life and growth. 

2. After this rapid glance, let us now look at the second 
main point in our subject; at Episcopacy as a teaching in- 
stitute, or as ruling the Church by the discipline of Truth; 
at the influence of Bishops in doctrine, preaching, and example, 
on the body of the clergy, and of the people. This is the 
most important post of influence, which the Christian ministry 
can fill. It is Christ's chief instrumentality for the salvation 
of lost men. 

In his true character, then, as humble and holy, laborious 
and Christ-like, a teaching Bishop comes in contact with 
all classes in the Church, the old and the young, the clergy 
and the people, under the most favorable circumstances ; not 
merely as a good man in the ministry, but as such a man, 
clothed with the authority, and surrounded by the reverence, 
which attach themselves to his ancient and peculiar office ; the 
recognized and venerated teacher, not of a few, but of the 
whole flock committed to his care ; the grave and honored 
expounder of the doctrine of Christ to the more or less widely 
spread clergy and people of his charge. It is true, even a 
Bishop may teach error and exemplify wickedness : and so, with 
even greater facility, may any other ministry.* This, therefore, 
unfavorably affects not our view. Take two preachers of the 
Gospel, — equally learned and able, equally holy and exem- 
plary; in all essential respects alike, save that the one is a 



* The comparatively small number of Bishops in a Church, and the greater 
publicity of their teachings and manner of life, keep them more strictly in the 
eye of public scrutiny, and render it more easy to compare their doctrine and 
conduct with the standards of truth and duty, than can be the case with a more 
numerous body of clergy, each of whom is ordinarily confined within the limits 
of a narrower and more private sphere. 

12 



178 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

Bishop, and the other merely an influential minister among 
non-Episcopalians : it will, I apprehend, be impossible so to 
extend and diversify the Christian labors and influence of the 
latter, as to render them equal in power and efficiency on the 
spiritual welfare of the flock of Christ, with the similarly ex- 
tended labors, and the peculiarly diversified influence of the 
former. He has not the same point of advantage, from, which 
to act. He carries not with him, in the peculiar genius of his 
office, the same silent, but living and deep-felt power for good. 
This comparison is not intended to depreciate the blessed 
power of the able and holy man of God, in the office of such a 
minister ; but to show that it is simply impossible to clothe 
him with all the means for good, which invest the equally holy 
and able man of God in the office of a Bishop. In his doctrine 
and in his teaching ; in his example and in his active measures 
for the extension of true religion, there is a peculiarity of in- 
fluence about such a Bishop, to which no other minister of 
Christ can attain. It is, of course, a peculiarity, which grows, 
not out of the man, but out of his office, and out of the adapted- 
ness, in which that office meets certain great and permanent 
susceptibilities in our common nature. Say what we will, we 
cannot take out of our nature the salutary feelings of deference 
and respect, with which it stands in the presence of just and 
fitting, and rightly constituted superiority of official rank ; a 
superiority of rank, not so high as to inspire awe, and a pain- 
ful sense of distance ,* nor yet depressed so nearly to the com- 
mon grade, or to the idea of a mere gift from the people, as to 
breed familiarity, or generate contempt. In spite of theories, 
our nature dreads the monotony of an unbroken level. A 
beautiful and harmonious ascent of being and of orders marks 
all God's works in heaven and on earth; and it is impossible to 
extinguish the feelings, which spontaneously spring up in the 
manifested presence of this divine constitution of things. A 
pure Gospel, and the religion, which it imbodies, spread to the 
best advantage from such a Bishop as I have described. He has 
the best opportunities for impressing the holy character of 
Christ and His Gospel upon wide masses of men, and upon all 
the living institutes and permanencies of the Church. The 



GOVERNMENT. 179 

point of influence, from which he acts, gives him the best 
means of " driving away from the Church all erroneous and 
strange doctrines, contrary to God's Word." He is not so far 
off from his clergy and people but that he can see and measure 
error and its evils -with his own eyes, and remove them by such 
means as are wisest and best ; nor yet, so nearly on an equality 
with them in conceded authority and influence as to strip his 
discipline of its just power for effect. He is, I venture to 
affirm, the happiest instrumentality for religious good, which 
the Church has ever known, or the world ever felt. He con- 
centrates confidence, veneration, love ; he awakens respect, 
reverence, obedience ; he promotes harmony, zeal, action ; and 
he does all with a peculiarity of success to which, as I venture 
to suppose, no one, under other forms of the ministry, can at- 
tain ; to which no one in the lower orders of an Episcopally 
constituted ministry itself can attain; which springs from the 
fact that there are lower orders in this ministry j and which, in 
truth, is partly but the pow T er of these lower orders working 
upwards, and becoming manifest in the results of this benignly 
effective Presidency. 

The main objection to this view, will, I suppose, be found in 
the allegation, that the office of a Bishop has too much power, 
too strong attractions for the mere worldly heart in its love of 
authority and of official consideration ; and that, therefore, 
Bishops are more liable to become worldly in spirit and cor- 
rupt in doctrine, and consequently baleful in their influence on 
the cause of spiritual religion, than a ministry constituted on 
the basis of official parity. If the Episcopal office were in- 
deed and intrinsically identified with the pomp and circum- 
stance, the wealth and political power, which, in some coun- 
tries, have been associated with it, there would be weight in 
the objection. But such is not the case. These corrupting 
influences belong not to the office itself, so much as to the cir- 
cumstances with which worldly influence has surrounded the 
office. The love of power is innate, ineradicable, and, unless 
under the control of divine grace, inordinate. To the human 
heart office is nothing, but as it is a means for acquiring, or an 



180 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

instrument for exercising, the power which it loves. And even 
as such a means, or instrument, it is, perhaps, of less importance 
than many suppose. The main sources of power lie within a 
man ; and when the spring is deep and copious, if it do not find 7 
it will soon force a channel for its gushings. When the love 
of power is strong, if it do not meet, it will easily make, an 
office, into which it may vault and ride on high among the 
people. And when human ambition makes an office for itself, 
it is somewhat apt to make it higher than God, in his wisdom, 
has seen fit to ordain.* So far, then, as the theory of the 
Episcopal office is concerned, it may, perhaps, be said that 
where no due gradation in the ministry is established and con- 
ceded, the ambitions which live deep in our nature, and the 
consequent difficulty of maintaining simple equality among 
masses of men of varying abilities and susceptibilities, will be 
more likely to engender strifes after superiority of place and 
power, than where such a gradation in the ministry is es- 
tablished and conceded, and where the very fixedness of insti- 
tutions tends, so far as any thing can tend, to generate a spirit 
of quiet submission and contentment of mind under the reign 
of lawful and acknowledged order. 

The best illustration both of the theory and of the working 
of true Episcopacy may, perhaps, be gathered from the earliest 
ages oi» the Church. What, then, was a Bishop designed to 
be % What was he in the pristine days of his office 1 I an- 
swer, the most conspicuous follower of Christ, as well in pov- 
erty and sufferings as in the aboundings of his toils for the 
souls of men ; the very front mark in the Christian army to the 
arrow of the destroyer and the sword of the persecutor. 
" Nolo Episcopari," " I desire not to be a Bishop," was then 
the utterance, not of a counterfeit or a false modesty, but of a 
human heart, speaking out of its deepest sensibilities, and 



* I am willing that this should be applied to the causes, which set in the 
Church Arch-bishops, Patriarchs, and Popes. These, as I have shewn, are not. 
naturally developed Episcopacy ; they are man's aspirings, vaulting above 
primitive Order: and, had that Order been Presbyterial, the leap upwards 
would have been quite as possible, and but little higher, 



GOVERNMENT. 18 1 

meaning that, " if the Master would mercifully excuse his ser- 
vant, he would prefer laboring in less observed and less peril- 
ous posts of duty." The Episcopal office was not sought by 
the worldly or the ambitious then; it could not be urged on 
any but those who were constrained, by love for Christ and 
for the souls of men, to " count all things but loss," and to be 
counted as but the " ofFscouring of all things." Then the influ- 
ence of the office was not corrupting but purifying. It drew, 
into that front ministry, none but the choicest of the fine gold ; 
and it drew that gold thither but to refine it still more perfectly, 
as in a furnace of fire ! Those days will never return ; but 
the time may come — God send it soon — when the office of a 
Bishop shall have nothing — (in our own country it now has little 
indeed) — to attract the heart, but superior opportunities of 
doing good in the salvation of men, amid more abounding toils, 
privations and hardships, endured from love to the dear Savior 
of our souls, and to those for whom He so freely shed His own 
precious blood. The idea, wherever it prevails, that the dig- 
nity of this office must be maintained by surrounding it with 
the adventitious array of wealth and titles, seems like an im- 
putation on the lowly Jesus, and to be born of a mere earthly 
conception of the dignity in view,* as if the work of Christ and 
the office of His chief ambassador did not shine brightest and 
most heavenly when seen, like the stars, at night; surround- 
ed, if need be, by the darkness of poverty, and of a wicked 
world's frown ! True Bishops need, not court either poverty 
or persecution ; neither should they ignobly shun them ; and, 
least of all, should they covet equality with the great of this 
world in the external circumstances of wealth and power. — 
Their influence will be most extended and most benign, when, 
in character and labors, they are most like Christ ; and when 
they partake most largely in the spirit of him who " rejoiced 
in his sufferings for the brethren, and in filling up what was 
behind of the afflictions of Christ, for His Body's sake, which 
is the Church."* 

* Col. ij 24. 



182 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

Such, then, is the Episcopacy which I advocate, separated 
from what belongs not to it, save in common with other sys- 
tems ; from what springs out of corrupt nature itself, and out 
of the unfriendly circumstances of which history takes note. 
It is as proper to limit our views to such an Episcopacy, as, in 
estimating the value of other forms of the ministry, to suppose 
those who fill them to be good men. In estimating the value 
of any particular constitution of the ministry, no one would 
go on the supposition that its incumbents were bad men, or 
even needlessly embarrassed with obstructions hostile to their 
proper usefulness. Let it be recalled to mind that other con- 
stitutions of the ministry, as well as Episcopacy, are liable to 
dangerous corruptions and abuses ; and that, if anyone of them 
had descended to our times through as lono- and as adverse a 
period as that through which Episcopacy has come down, it 
would, doubtless, have developed evils, if not the same, at 
least as great, as those which have clustered round this same 
Episcopacy itself. We have viewed this institution as it 
ought to be; as it was in its pristine age ; as it has been since 
in unnumbered glorious instances ; as it now is in multitudes 
of instances scarcely less glorious ; and, as we firmly believe it 
will be every where, when the abuses of the ages, already so 
inconsiderable among ourselves, shall all be swept away ; and 
when the perpetuated and venerated blessings of the Episco- 
pacy of elder times shall be seen opening the rich stores with 
which it has come freighted downwards to our day, and pour- 
ing them into the lap of a thankful Church, and upon the head 
of a once unthankful world. 

Is not Episcopacy, then, thus viewed, pre-eminently good in 
both its offices, that of ruling the Church by the discipline of 
order, and that of molding Christians by the discipline of 
truth ; of ruling the Church on the middle ground between 
the two extremes of Papal tyranny and of popular misrule ; 
and of disciplining Christians in the doctrines of life, both by 
driving out hurtful and strange error, and by giving its most 
benign and powerful action to saving, heavenly truth 1 We 
have necessarily taken but a very partial survey of a great 



GOVERNMENT 183 

subject, but we have, I think, seen enough to commend the 
institution which we have examined to every sound and judi- 
cious, to every serious and spiritual mind. We, at least, shall 
never cast away what we believe to be apostolic in its origin, 
merely because a wicked world has abused it in its descent ; but, 
clinging to it for its own sake, and for the sake of its founders, 
will labor to save it yet for a jarring earth, as one among the 
richest and most conservative of benefits from Heaven. 



DISCOURSE XII. 



u The true worshipers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth." — 
John iv ; 23. 



After concluding the argument upon the true comprehen- 
sion of the Church Universal, I proposed to touch upon two 
other topics, which, though not strictly belonging to the com- 
prehension, are, nevertheless, connected with the general sub- 
ject, of the Church. To one of these topics I was led by some 
remarks on a passage from Heb. xiii ; 17. I shall be led to the 
other by some observations on a passage in John iv ; 23. — 
" The true worshipers shall worship the Father in Spirit and 
in Truth." 

These words of Christ to the woman of Samaria exhibit 
the character of the true worshiper of God in all places and 
in all ages. 

Worship, in its outward manifestations, like government in 
its varying forms, has every where and always been a function 
of the Church Universal. Though no one form of worship 
can be used as a mark, by which to ascertain the true compre- 
hension of the Church, yet no part of the Visible Church has 
ever been without worship in some form. It may, perhaps, be 
said with truth, that the Church is essentially a worshiping 
body. 

The requisites to all acceptable worship are stated with ad- 
mirable precision by Him who " spake as never man spoke." 
Such worship must ever be " in Spirit and in Truth.'''' It must 



186 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

be " in Spirit," as consisting, not merely in outward form and 
ceremony, not merely in external offerings and sacrifices ; but 
also in an inward and spiritual act, in an earnest engagement 
of mind and heart, in the strong, spiritual exercises of the 
soul itself. It must also be " in Truth," as well as " in Spirit :" 
in Truth, as involving sincerity, and as opposed to hypocrisy, 
and to all mistaken or artificial excitement of the mind and 
feelings ; in Truth, as being really aided by the Holy Spirit of 
Truth, and essentially based on right views of the true God, 
and of the truths which He has revealed. All, who worship 
God " in Spirit and in Truth," as these terms have now been 
explained, are accepted of him ; and none others can be. He 
" seeketh such to worship Him," and with none but such can 
He be pleased. All outward forms of worship, when vacated 
of this Spirit and this Truth, are but as a smoke in His nostrils, 
an offence to His eye, and an insult to His ear. He "is a 
Spirit," and, as, such, looketh right through all outward acts 
and forms, and sees whether they are filled with what is, like 
Himself, Spirit and Truth ; or w T hether, harmonizing with the 
character of the hypocrite, the formalist, or the visionary, they 
are but the empty mockery of the knee, the lip, and the eye, 
or as the glare of a false fire. 

From this, however, it must not be inferred that the forms, 
in which worship is offered, are, in themselves, matters of no 
importance. The true, silent worship of the soul is a sublime 
offering, and goes up to God as an " incense of a sweet smell- 
ing savor." But, in the action of the Visible Church, it can 
never take the place of a worship, expressing itself in some 
appropriate outward form. It is, therefore, an inquiry of much 
interest, in what form this worship may best be offered % In 
proposing this inquiry, let me be understood as speaking of the 
worship, not of the closet, nor of the family, nor of the vol- 
untary social circle, but of the Church in its public, stated, 
ordained services. In what form, then, may this worship be 
most advantageously offered 1 Unless we adopt the theory of 
a silent worship, some form the Church must necessarily have. 
Is that form, then, the best, which, by proper ecclesiastical 
authority, has been previously settled and enjoined, or that, 



WORSHIP. 187 

which, so far as its incidental clothing of words is concerned, 
may be called extemporaneous 1 

I put the question in this shape, because I am free to confess 
that the Bible does not, by explicit, or binding precept, settle 
any thing as to the form in which the worship of the Church 
must be offered. The absence of binding scriptural authority, 
for any one form of public worship, is so manifest, that the 
American, following herein the English, Preface to the Book 
of Common Prayer, has laid it down as the ground of one of 
its rules; that "the particular forms of Divine "Worship are 
things, in their own nature, indifferent and alterable, and so 
acknowledged." As any individual, family, or social circle is 
at liberty to worship either with or Avithout a previously set- 
tled form, so, any organized Visible Church has the same liber- 
ty when engaged in settling this question for itself. It may 
adopt either the one form or the other ; and having done so, it 
may change the one for the other, provided, that, in such 
change, it act, as our Preface expresses the provision, " by 
common consent and authority." 

It is needless to say that our branch of the Church Universal, 
following, in this respect, general custom, has enjoined wor- 
ship by a form previously settled and enjoined ; and that, 
until " by common consent and authority," this form be alter- 
ed or abolished, it is not admissible for us, as a Church, to wor- 
ship in any other way than that prescribed. 

It is almost as needless to say, that worship by such a previ- 
ously settled form may be offered, as God requires, "in spirit 
and in truth." No spiritually enlightened and really candid 
mind will deny or doubt the truth of this remark. The facts 
that the worship both of the Temple and of the Synagogue 
was by such a form, and that the holy Jesus was in the habit 
of joining it in both places, forever settle this point; and 
should put the seal of silence on the lip of every one who ob- 
jects that worship by such a form is opposed, or unfriendly, to 
worship " in Spirit and in Truth." Either such a form is con- 
gruous with these interior requisites ; or Christ has sanctioned 
by His example what, by His words, He has condemned. 

These points, then, thus briefly disposed of, it is my purpose 



188 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

in this discourse, to treat of what I regard as a chief advantage 
of an authorized and enjoined form in the public, stated worship 
of the Church. 

In doing this, it is not necessary to sympathize — I acknow- 
ledge that I do not sympathize — in many of the common stric- 
tures passed upon worship in an extemporaneous form. We 
may think and admit — for myself I freely confess to such 
thoughts and admissions — that, following simple nature taught 
and aided by the Holy Spirit, the heart is strongly inclined to 
pour forth its emotions and desires, its faith and its love, into 
the bosom and upon the ear of God, in the unstudied language 
of gushing earnestness and affection ; and that worship thus of- 
fered, whether in secret or in public, is highly acceptable to 
Him " that looketh on the heart." We may take this view 
and make these admissions without touching the real merits of 
the question, whether, in the public, stated worship of the 
Church, the advantages of a previously settled and enjoined 
mode preponderate over those of an extemporaneous form. 
This question must be settled, not by. reference to what simple 
nature, influenced by divine grace, would prompt the heart to 
do by itself, but by a reference to what is demanded by the 
complex and, in its simplest form, artificial, structure of the 
Church; by the involved and multiform interests and influences 
of its social organization. 

In examining this point, the view generally taken, as in the 
treatise of the philosophic Dr. Paley, virtually supposes the 
mind of the Church to be, in the main, at rest : that is, in a 
state of religious repose, which renders it a fit subject for the 
just development of the comparative excellences of the two 
forms of worship. And if the mind of the Church could al- 
ways be kept in such a state, this would be the true light in 
which to view the subject. But the mind of the Church is not 
always, nor generally, in such a state. From within itself and 
from without, it is often excited, put in motion, and driven, if 
not into progress, at least towards change. In these states of 
mind, too, it frequently happens, so far as the mass of individ- 
uals is affected, that theological views are shifting, doctrines 
are in transition, faith is unsettled, and customs are upheaved. 



WORSHIP. 189 

These, therefore, would seem to be the periods, most proper 
for testing the comparative value of the two forms of public 
worship in the Church. I shall look at the subject with spe- 
cial reference to such a state of things. Such a state now ex- 
ists ; has long existed ; and has affected, not one part alone, but 
the whole, of Protestant Christendom. It may be added, that, 
except when its spiritual life has either become stagnant amid 
the corruptions of error, superstition, and worldliness ) or been 
raised to a point of purity and power seldom, if ever, realized 
on earth ; the Church is never wholly free from the influence 
of such a state in the agitations and tendencies of what may 
be termed its general mind. 

In approaching now, the point of comparison before us, it 
is necessary that we obtain a previous, distinct view of what, 
in all public worship, is the true attitude of the really de- 
votional MIND. 

"What is this attitude] I reply: The really devotional mind, 
engaged in public worship, is, not in the intellectually critical, 
but, in what, for the sake of graphic brevity, I would denomi- 
nate the amen-saying state. In other words, such a mind is not 
in a frame which inclines it to pause ; to question every utter- 
ance of him who leads its devotions j to compare every such 
utterance with the standard of truth ; and so to judge whether 
or not it cover a heresy : but, it is in a frame which inclines it 
to repose, with sweet confidence, on the soundness of its leader j 
to catch his utterances as they flow warm from his heart and his 
lip ; and, with a constant and impulsive, though silent, "amen" to 
speed them upwards to the Throne on the swelling importunity 
of a people's prayer. This is the true attitude of the really de- 
votional mind in all public worship. Any other attitude is unfit- 
ting the occasion. It is but turning worship into an exercise, and 
a training, of the mere critical intellect. I say, not merely that 
such should be, but that such is, the true attitude of the really 
devotional mind. It is the attitude which such a mind actually 
seeks and maintains. When it changes this attitude for some 
other, it ceases to be a devotional, and becomes a critical, spec- 
ulative, or discursive mind, or a mind in some other attitude 
equally foreign from the true spirit of public worship. 



190 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

I. As acting, then, on this true attitude of a really devotion- 
al spirit, let us look, in the first place, at the tendency of an 
extemporaneous mode of public worship, during such a period 
of movement in the mind of the Church as that, which we 
have contemplated. 

A deep, perhaps a still and, by the mass, unnoticed current 
of speculation and threatened change is running through the 
ecclesiastical mind. The minister of a congregation, worship- 
ing extemporaneously, falls into this current ; moves with it $ 
and is, in fact, one of those who intelligently, or by sympa- 
thetic influence, guide its course. If, now, he be conscious of 
the change, which is agitating the mind of the Church, and 
which is passing in his own ; and if, withal, he be an honest 
and a bold man ; he may, and probably will, utter his new 
convictions in his public devotions ; and thus, if those new 
convictions belong to what his Church deems heterodoxy, or 
error, he may be detected ; and, unless his congregation sym- 
pathise with him, he may, by an act of discipline, be removed 
from his post of influence. But if, as it will probably happen, 
he be, at first, without a distinct consciousness of the neverthe- 
less real change, which is passing in his mind ; and if, though 
an honest, he be yet a timid man j more especially, if, as it 
may happen, he be a man of unscrupulous conscience, who 
knows what he is doing; who intends to lead the Church, so 
far as his influence extends, away from its fixed and ancient 
landmarks of faith and doctrine ; and who, in the fervor and 
strength of his new convictions, deems it right to effect his 
great and, in his own estimation, good end, by politic and art- 
ful means ; then, evidently, a plain and easy way lies open for 
his entrance. 

While his people, at worship, are in what I have described 
as the true attitude of the devotional mind ; looking upon their 
common leader in prayer as also their authorized teacher in 
doctrine ; sweetly confiding in his guidance of their devotions j 
unsuspectingly drinking at the stream of worshiping thought, 
as it flows from his lips ; appropriating his utterances as their 
own ; and sending them up, with their silent 'Amens,' to Godj 
while they are waiting upon him in this spirit, he at first, either 



WORSHIP. 191 

unconsciously, or by design, omits, not only in teaching, but 
especially in devotion, all reference to those old and distinc- 
tive truths of the Gospel, in which the ancient doctrinal land- 
marks of his Church had been set up. What follows '? In a 
few years, these distinctive truths lose, by simple neglect, their 
practical importance and hold on the mind ; a dimness settles 
on the spiritual perceptions of the flock ; and all that once, in 
their view, constituted the peculiarity of the Christian's faith, 
lies as if under a dense and distant fog. At length, as his own 
convictions change and strengthen, and fill him with the im- 
pulses of their new-born force, or as he observantly finds the 
way prepared for a further movement ,* he worshipingly yields 
to those convictions, and begins to advance the new views, to 
which he has been led, not, at first, in a full and startling 
dress, but in a softened and unsuspicious form. The devotion- 
al mind has already become accustomed to the absence of old 
forms of faith and doctrine : it now becomes easily familiar 
with the presence of the new phase of theology ; exhibiting, as 
it yet does, much that is plausible, or not incompatible with 
accredited views. The way is now prepared for a still further 
movement. Under the growing change, which has seized it, 
the mind of the people becomes distinctly conscious of a posi- 
tive dislike for what it can recall of the old orthodoxy. It 
therefore endures, with somewhat like real relish, the fuller 
and bolder invectives against that system, which begin to be 
hazarded, even in teaching ; and which, perhaps unconsciously, 
partake somewhat of the extravagance of caricature. In this 
state of mind, the full result of the movement has approached 
the birth. The work of change becomes complete ; and both 
minister and people finish their transition by passing, openly 
and avowedly, into some one of the new, erroneous, and per- 
haps fatal theologic systems of the day. A minority, it may 
be, remain steadfast in their old faith : but this only insures a 
new division in the Church ; the organization of a new and 
feeble congregation 5 and, peradventure, an excited legal con- 
test about the temporalities, which such a division involves. 
Which way soever this contest is decided, the body of the con- 
gregation is led off from its former faith ; and, if the change 



192 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

be, as supposed, from truth to error, the Christian scheme is 
either partially, or fundamentally subverted ; and the living 
efficiencies of the Gospel, seriously, perhaps fatally, nullified. 

I present this view, — not as against the private liberty of any 
man to form, or to alter, his personal faith on his personal re- 
sponsibility to God 5 — much less as actuated by^a desire to ex- 
cite unpleasant or unkind feelings in others ; — but, as against 
the stability of the public and settled faith of the Church ; and 
as calculated to shew the operation of the extemporaneous 
mode of worship under given circumstances of the case. To 
my mind, the view taken explains a large class of facts famil- 
iar to multitudes of the past, and of the present age. If the 
faith of Churches, organized on the Congregational, or Inde- 
pendent basis, have been more frequently overthrown by the 
influence, or the co-operation, of this mode of worship, than 
that of other bodies worshiping in the same mode, it is simply, 
as I infer, because the Congregational, or Independent system 
of government makes each organized worshiping assembly a 
separate Church, with the powers of government and discipline 
complete in itself, and subject to little or no controlling, or 
even revising oversight from other and similarly organized 
bodies. The tendency, or liability, to such a subversion of 
the faith, it is evident, exists wherever this form of worship is 
adopted ; — and the results of the tendency are exhibited, I ap- 
prehend, with more or less distinctness, through all the spread- 
ings of the system. 

II. Let us now, in the second place, look at the tendency of 
public worship by a form, previously settled and enjoined, as 
acting on the true devotional spirit, during the same supposed 
period of excitement and of threatened change in the mind of 
the Church. 

By way of preparation, however, for such a view, it is pro- 
per to state the only ground, on which a truly enlightened 
Christian will attempt to defend the use of such a form. For 
a form, in the abstract, such a Christian can have no overween- 
ing fondness. His defence must rest on the principles and 
character of the particular form to be adopted. 

In seeking, then, the grounds of his defence, he will demand 



WORSHIP. 193 

that such a form, besides being constructed on just logical 
principles, and in conformity with those of a simple, pure, and 
unchanging taste ; besides comprehending all the ordinary- 
wants of a worshiping congregation, and providing reasonably 
for all special occasions of public petition to God ; besides be- 
ing filled with true and ennobling, attractive and inspiring 
views of God, and with the very spirit of humble and rever- 
ential, fervent and heavenly devotion from man ; shall imbody 
all the great and essential, unchanging and saving verities of 
the Gospel, free from any dangerous admixtures of human 
error. I mean not that a Liturgy should be filled with dog- 
matic theology ; that it should be modeled on the ordinary 
forms of teaching, or consist of turning prayers into preach- 
ing ; that it should recognize doubtful, especially if they be 
unessential points in Divinity ; or that it should present even 
the essential, fundamental verities of the Gospel in aught of a 
doctrinal or controversial dress ; but that it should be based on 
all these great verities as its foundation; that it should use 
them all devotionally ; that it should work them all into its 
confessions and petitions, its thanksgivings and intercessions, 
its ascriptions and adorations, its anthems and hymns ; and that 
in the power and sweet-savor, and prevalency of them all, it 
should ascend, and seek to make our worshiping hearts ascend, 
to the throne, and the ear, and the heart of Him that heareth 
and answereth His true people's prayer. 

A Liturgy should thus imbody these living truths, free 
from all dangerous admixtures of human error, because, if it 
exclude these truths, especially if, while retaining, it overlay 
them with such an admixture of error, the very reason, which 
commends the use of a Liturgy rightly constructed, would 
legislate against it, and banish it utterly from the devotions of 
a redeemed and worshiping flock. A Liturgy, thus falsely 
constructed, would either want the soul of a true Christian 
worship, or stereotype error in its most imperishable forms, on 
the hearts and the habits, the memory and the mind of far- 
reaching generations. Were the use of such Liturgies as 
might be named to become universal in the Church, we might 
probably say with truth, that it had been better for " the faith 
13 



194 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

once delivered to the Saints," had the Printing Art lain undis- 
covered j had the pen never traced a letter beyond the inspired 
page ; and had the true servants of Christ been left, with 
nothing but the Bible and the Spirit to teach, and with nothing 
but their own hearts and tongues to tell out, their- adoring 
thoughts and their in-felt wants to God. 

Whether the Liturgy which we use be constructed accord- 
ing to the principles just stated I cannot stop minutely to 
inquire. I am willing to leave this question to all fair and 
candid minds, even among those, who, on the whole, prefer an 
extemporaneous worship. It is enough for my present pur- 
pose to say, that our Liturgy has received, from many of the 
most enlightened and pious of Evangelical Christians of other 
names, the highest and most eloquent commendations on the 
ground of its conformity to the principles which I have sta- 
ted 5 and that some, if not all, of the defects or faults, which 
the eye of a Paley detected in the English book, were removed 
from the American, when we came to adapt it to the altered 
political condition of our country as it took its stand among 
independent nations. With these remarks I assume the point, 
that our Liturgy is remarkably full and rich in the saving 
truths of the Gospel ; while, at the same time, it is free, not 
as some too idolatrously ween, from all human error, but as we 
may justly claim, from all dangerous admixtures of such error y 
that it is constructed on the jusjtest principles of logic and of 
sound taste ; is copious in its provisions for all the general, and 
for most of the special wants of a worshiping people j and 
abounds in such self-abasing confessions and supplications, and 
in such fervent and sublime strains of devotion, that the most 
broken-hearted penitent may well pour out his soul in the for- 
mer, while glorious angels, were they visibly present, might 
cordially utter their loud " Amens " to the latter. 

I proceed now to the second view which I have proposed : 
a view of the tendencies of such a form of worship, acting on 
the true devotional spirit, during periods of excitement and of 
threatened change in the mind of the Church. 

We will, then, suppose the minister of a particular congre- 
gation, worshiping by such a form, to be in the same condition 



WORSHIP. 195 

cf mind as that before instanced. He has fallen into the cur- 
rent, which is setting so deeply and powerfully through the 
public religious mind ; he moves with that current ; he reaches 
the result to which it tends ; he becomes an errorist, perhaps of 
the most dangerous kind. But, what now is the position in which 
he finds himself, as one, who may wish to change the faith of 
the Church into a conformity with his newly adopted views X 

If he be a dishonest man, or a man of unscrupulous con- 
science, who thinks it right to effect what he deems a good 
end by means, which others would regard as of questionable 
morality, he cannot take advantage of the devoutly re- 
sponding spirit of his worshiping congregation. He cannot 
make his people drink at the stream of his errors through 
the confidings of their Amen- saying mind. Though he him- 
self be steeped in heresy, yet that to which they say ' amen,' 
is full of the richness and life of God's Truth. If he attempt 
to disseminate his errors, he can do it no where but in the pul- 
pit, or from the press, or by conversation ; and the moment 
he makes this attempt he must pour his doctrine into the ear of 
his people's critical intellect. In this enterprise, he has 
not before him a confiding, appropriating body of worshiping 
minds, but a congregation, who feel that the reason and un- 
derstanding, which he addresses, are their own ; who have a 
right to judge him by his acknowledged and sworn standards ; 
and who, in their jealous love for those standards, will not be 
slow either to see or to arraign the adventurous delinquent. — 
Before such a judge, abiding by such standards, the discrep- 
ancy between the Pulpit, the Press, or the lip of Colloquy, 
on the one side, and the loud, distinct, and incessant utterances 
of the desk on the other, is at once detected ; and, if that dis- 
crepancy be on fundamental points, he is at once removed from 
his post of influence in the Church. Examples of the opera- 
tion of this principle have not been wanting even within the 
limits of our brief history as an independent Ecclesiastical 
Organization : # and if our Church should ever fail to cut off* 

* The case of the Rev. formerly of the Diocese of Connecticut, who 

attempted to teach the doctrines of Universalis™ from one of our pulpits, and 
who, notwithstanding the caution, with which he prosecuted his attempt, was 
detected and removed from the ministry, — was one in point. 



196 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

such errorists, it will be, not because she wants means to de- 
tect them, but because she will have proved unfaithful to her 
Master and to her work ; an unfaithfulness for which she will 
deserve the chastening which detected yet allowed corruptions 
will not fail to inflict. 

If we take, what it is a happiness to know is, a more fre- 
quent case j if we suppose the minister in question, to be, 
though an errorist, yet an honest man, strong indeed in his 
convictions, but with a good conscience in his bosom ; then, as 
his convictions become settled, (if they settle in the direction 
of the rationalistic extreme,) he cannot continue the use of our 
Liturgy. It imbodies and is based on truths, or, as he will 
consider them, errors, which will make his head ache every 
time he utters them on his knees, against his new convictions 
and amid his people's hearty ' Amens.' What shall he do 1 A 
hypocrite he cannot be, for he is an honest man and has a con- 
science, whose fair answer is of more value to him than thou- 
sands of wealth, or pinnacles of honor ; and a wound upon 
which he more dreads than he does obscurity, and poverty, and 
rags. There is but one thing which he can do. He must re- 
tire from his ministry: a resistless voice within commands the 
movement : he obeys : and thus, — so far as his influence can 
now directly reach her faith, — the Church is safe. Examples 
of the operation of this principle are familiar to all, who are 
familiar with our ecclesiastical history.* 

* The great infrequency, rather the entire absence, of cases, in which an Epis- 
copal Congregation have been led away from the faith of their Church, speaks, 
on this point, strong language. The case of King's Chapel, Boston, is no ex- 
ception to the remark. It has been said that this, il The first Episcopal Church 
in New England, became the first Unitarian Church in the United States." [Vide, 
Hist. King's Chap, by Dr. Greenwood.] This, however, is an incorrect state- 
ment. That was not a case, in which an Episcopal Church became Unitarian j 
but, a case, in which an Edifice, once occupied by an Episcopal Congregation, 
subsequently came into the possession and occupation of Unitarians. The 
building was virtually vacated, by the incidents of the War of the Revolution, 
of its Episcopal occupants and worship ; — and, thus vacated, passed at length 
into the hands of a virtually new Congregation, composed mostly of Unitarians. 
No sooner, however, was this transfer of the building effected, than it was re- 
solved to alter the Liturgy by striking out all references to the great doctrine of 
the Trinity. It was equally impossible for the new Congregation, as honest 
men, to worship with the old Prayer Book, as it was for their officiating Reader, 
as aia honest candidate for the ministry, to obtain Episcopal Ordination. Had 



WORSHIP. 197 

If, however, his convictions have settled, — not in the direc- 
tion of the Rationalist, but — in that of the Ritualist, extreme, 
he is met with an opposite, though a scarcely less operative, 
characteristic in our Liturgy : its blank vacancy of all that can 
minister to the longings of that peculiar taste, which accom- 
panies the adoption of Romish dogmas and observances, as uni- 
formly as a shadow follows its substance. In continuing the 
use of our liturgy, he finds not a penance for the post-baptis- 
mal transgressor, nor a missal for the worshiper of transubstanti- 
ated elements j not a trace of the confessional, nor a line about 
human merits ; not a prayer for the dead, nor a mass for 
patients under Purgatorial discipline ; not a single prayer to 
the Virgin, nor an invocation to a solitary saint ; not a note of 
wonder at the miracles of the Church, nor even a viaticum for 
the distressed Christian "in extremis ;" not a psean to celibacy, 
nor a laud to virginity ; not a shrine for a consecrated relic, 
nor a receptacle for an anointed picture j in short, not a single 
ceremony designed for pomp, nor a solitary contrivance for in- 
spiring awe j but all plain and decent in posture, all simple 
and beautiful in order, all sound and scriptural in utterance, 
all rational as well as fervent in devotion : nor can he intro- 
duce into the forms, which he uses, any thing to awaken in 
others the longings, which are consuming himself: not a word 
of truth can he leave out, nor a syllable of error, bring in, 
while conducting the worship of the Church : nothing can he 
do towards the end, at which he aims, but introduce a few poor 
changes of posture and of costume, which, by their very 
meagerness, fail to satisfy himself, while, hy their dim pointing 
towards somewhat more startlingly significant, they displease 
most others, and betray the secret errors, which would beguile 
them from their faith. His position, in truth, becomes one of 
serious embarrassment. The cravings of his secret appetite 
are left, unfed, in painful hunger j and the steps of his half- 



the original Congregation of King's Chapel never been dispersed, and the use of 
the Liturgy among them by an Episcopal clergyman never been interrupted, 
that venerable Edifice, and that ancient Congregation, had doubtless remained 
to this day ; the latter as sound in the faith, as the former had proved loyal to 
the worship, of our truly Orthodox Church. 



198 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

timid movements are watched by a thousand reproving looks ; 
till, even if he succeed in screening his errors from ecclesias- 
tical censure, his conscience as an honest man, and his feelings 
as a self-respecting man, compel him to abandon a ministry, to 
which he can no longer be comfortably loyal ; and thus, to de- 
liver the Church, which he serves, from the teaching and from 
the influence of his inconsistent example. 

It was the pressure of that negative character of our liturgy, 
now noticed, which stimulated the efforts of some in the English 
Church to restore to credit, and thereby bring back into use, 
the whole discarded, and for ages unused, Romish Breviary. 
The Ritual Spirit felt, amid what seemed to it the ceremonial 
poverty of the Anglican forms, a painful sense of want, not 
easily to be endured. It, therefore, sought elsewhere its ne- 
cessary food : first, by endeavoring to bring that food to itself 
in the English Church : and finally, when that proved impos- 
sible, by going after it to the Church of Rome. Truly, then, 
this Ritual Spirit, so far as it finds entrance, must be in a most 
famishing condition amid the more severely simple forms, in 
which the worship of our American Episcopal Church is set 
forth. These forms are, indeed, rich to those, who love the 
manna, and beautiful to those, who admire the plainness, of 
heavenly truth ; but they must be poor to those, who long for 
the splendid ornament, and common to those, who sigh for the 
imposing pomps, of a long discarded Superstition. It can be 
no wonder if such should be incessantly studying change. Our 
liturgy cannot satisfy their cravings ; nor can they ever use it 
in diffusing their peculiar tastes through the Church. 

The view, which I have been taking, will help to illustrate 
the influence of such a liturgy as ours in the public worship of 
the Church, when operating, not only on a single congregation 
through the ministry of a single man, but also on the whole 
Ecclesiastical Body and through a long succession of genera- 
tions. In this operation, it is eminently conservative of the true 
faith of the Gospel. Full as it is of the very marrow of divine 
truth ; correct and chaste as it is in its style ; fervent and often 
sublime as it is in its spirit 5 it is also a composition, with 
which we almost necessarily become familiar. It lives in our 



WORSHIP. 199 

earliest and latest, in our fondest and holiest, associations. It 
furnishes much of our worshiping language, and many of our 
worshiping thoughts : and though not designed, in its use, to 
fill our prayers with sermons, yet, in its remembered strains, 
it does practically fill our hearts with doctrines ; and that, too, 
with doctrines in their most valuable forms ; not laid up, as 
sharp weapons, in the armory of our Critical Intellect, but 
preserved, as living and holy truths, in the spirit of pure, per- 
ennial devotion. The truths of our religion, thus associated, 
thus imbibed, and thus preserved, operate, among us, on the 
mind and heart of imitative Childhood, of ardent Youth, of 
digestive Manhood, and of meditative Age ; and thus become, 
in a sense, inwrought into the substance of the Church, and 
live and act as elements in her enduring constitution. The 
process may give to our ecclesiastical temperament lees of the 
excitable, the impulsive, and the strenuously, though fitfully 
active : yet it probably imparts to that temperament more of 
the contemplative, the healthful, and the long lived. 

Thus far, we have looked at the two forms of Worship, in 
their comparative action on the truly devotional mind, during 
periods of movement and of threatened change in the Church. 
If we were to examine their comparative action on the ordi- 
nary mass of mind, — indevout, unworshiping, as it always and 
every where is by nature ] we should possibly find the compar- 
ison somewhat modified. In this, its natural state, if the mind, 
listening to a set form, learn to repeat by rote what it after- 
wards cares not to ponder ; in listening to an extemporaneous 
form, it may learn to listen with incredulity to what it cannot 
appreciate, or with mere curiosity to what pleases its natural 
tastes. Under such a set form as ours, if the indevout mind 
learn any thing, it can learn little or nothing but God's truth : 
while, under an extemporaneous form, it will prove quite as 
susceptible as the devout spirit itself both to the absence of 
truth, and to the presence of error. And thus, w r hen the ripen- 
ing hour for change has come, the mind, in this state, may be 
found even more ready than that, which has thoroughly and 
devoutly digested its errors, for the deciding movement, which 
is to follow. For error, in all its forms, the affinity of the 



200 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

natural mind is uniformly stronger than that of the spiritual / 
inasmuch as the latter has something, while the former has 
nothing, to correct its native aversion to the self-mortifying' 
strictness of Christianity. 

III. There are other points, upon which the two forms of 
worship might be compared, but which the main design of this 
discourse does not require me fully to discuss. It may not, 
however, be improper, before closing, to give them a very brief 
notice. 

The principal objections, then, to public worship by a pre- 
viously settled and enjoined form, are these two : 1. The use 
of such a form, it is urged,- tends to formalism, through a con- 
tinual repetition of the same words ; the tongue, in its famili- 
arity with the sounds, repeating language, the meaning of 
which an untasked attention fails of carrying to the heart. 
2. Such a form is incapable of adaptation to many of the 
most interesting exigences of times, places, and circumstances : 
it cannot make the most effective use of providential occur- 
rences, and of local states of religious feeling. The use of an 
extemporaneous form, it is claimed, is far less exposed to the 
dangers of formalism ; and far more capable of occasional and 
local effectiveness, in awakening the religious sensibilities, and 
in cultivating the religious affections, amid the ceaseless, and 
often impressive incidents of life. 

But, though a candid mind will not hesitate to admit the 
tendency of forms to formalism ; yet, a discriminating mind 
may, perhaps, be able to see, that the tendency is stronger in 
the sound of the words, than it is found to be in the experience 
of Christians. There is such a tendency ; but it is not irresisti- 
ble: it may be counteracted. It needs but the life and spirit 
of religion, as ordinarily attendant on a faithful and earnest 
preaching of the Gospel, to keep this tendency within as nar- 
row limits, under the use of set forms of worship as under 
that of the extemporaneous mode. The tendency to formal- 
ism in religion is by no means limited to the use of prescribed 
forms of worship. It is a tendency, into which our nature too 
easily runs, even when partially sanctified, and when worship- 
ing in the most informal way. Safety from it, under all cir- 



WORSHIP. 201 

cumstances, is the gracious reward of nothing but strict and 
incessant watchfulness over the state of the heart and the spirit 
of its devotions : and, on these conditions, that safety is as 
well assured to those, who worship by a prescribed, as to those, 
who use an extemporaneous mode. 

Again : it need not be denied that a prescribed form of "Wor- 
ship is incapable of being minutely and perfectly adapted to 
the ever changing exigencies of life. But, perhaps, this dis- 
advantage is more than counterbalanced by accompanying 
safeguards against certain evils, to which, through its capabili- 
ties in this and other respects, extemporaneous worship is ex- 
posed. In the use of prescribed forms of worship, the officia- 
ting minister cannot make his own private and often peculiar 
feelings and experiences jar upon the common and frequently 
dissimilar feelings and states of mind in his auditory : nor can 
one minister ever be praying for what another is, at the same 
time, deprecating. In the use of such forms, he cannot fall 
into the painfully embarrassing hesitations, mistakes and im- 
proprieties of expression, which so often mark the public de- 
votional exercises of ungifted minds: nor can he ever follow 
the eccentricities of his own genius, and thus be led, as many 
often are, into irreverent familiarities, or unsafe extravagances ; 
startling forms of expression, or mere flights of oratory ; in- 
forming narratives before God, or virtual sermonizing before 
men. 

When, these and similar things are considered, it will be 
evident, that prescribed forms of Worship have some peculiar 
advantages, and are free from many special disadvantages : and 
that, if extemporaneous Worship be, at times, and for an occa- 
sion, remarkably and peculiarly impressive and effective, it is, 
at other times, embarrassingly lame, or disturbingly eccentric ; 
often unprofitable in its matter, and frequently doctrinal, rather 
than devotional, in its dress : while Worship by a prescribed 
form, such as ours, is always decent and dignified, devout and 
solemn, elevated and edifying : in short, uniformly fit to be 
offered, by sinful and penitent, believing and adoring mortals, 
at the footstool of that Throne, whereon is seated the high and 
the holy, the all-knowing and the all-gracious Immortal. 



202 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

It would be easy to enlarge on these and similar points of 
comparison. But my purpose leads me not farther in this di- 
rection. My main object in this discourse has been, to present 
the subject in what seems to me one of its strong lights ; and, 
having done so, to leave it, without much collateral remark, 
for contemplation in the hours of still and quiet thought. It 
is enough to say, touching such points as those, which I have 
now briefly noticed, they shew that each of the two forms of 
worship has its peculiar advantages, and its peculiar disadvan- 
tages • that, as these advantages and disadvantages are brought 
before different minds by the forces of education amid the cir- 
cumstances of life, and the varieties of human temperament, 
it is not strange that some should strongly lean to the extem- 
poraneous, while others as strongly incline to the pre-composed, 
form. Allowing, however, that the general arguments on either 
side were more evenly balanced than, to my mind, they appear 
to be ; still, the special view, which, in this discourse, I have 
endeavored to present, comes, in my judgment, with an over- 
whelming weight upon the question, and moves the balance 
decidedly in favor of public Worship by such a form, as that 
which I have described. 

There are some, indeed, who would turn the argument from 
this view in favor of an opposite conclusion. The fact, that 
such a form of worship tends to stereotype the faith and doc- 
trines of the Church, in the minds of the people as well as on 
their written records, furnishes, with them, the very reason 
why such forms should be rejected from the worship of the 
Church. They hold not to this fixedness of faith and opinions 
in religion. They are believers in progress, in development, 
in this as in other subjects. They consider Religion, like Phi- 
losophy, an improvable science ; not only as being capable of 
a more and more perfect comprehension, and as tending to im- 
prove human character in the individual and in the mass; but 
also as admitting of changes and new discoveries in its own 
elementary principles. They would therefore take away every 
thing, — forms, creeds, reverence, — every thing, that can stand 
as a barrier against full and perfect liberty of change, and of 
progress. Unchangeableness in the Church's faith and forms 



WORSHIP. 203 

is, to them, an offense. It gives no chance to their improve- 
ments upon what others deem the Divine plan and wisdom. 
The argument, therefore, which I have urged, instead of con- 
vincing them, turns them exactly the other way, and settles 
them, more firmly than ever, in their opposition to all prescript 
Worship, though it were by the best of forms. 

With such as share this feeling, I can have little hope of 
prevailing. But, with those who adopt a different view, I may 
hope my argument will have weight. Those, who believe 
that Revealed Truth, as it came from God, has in it fixed ele- 
ments ; — that Christianity has a settled and unchangeable base ; 
— that God has spoken all His mind concerning the Way of 
our Salvation, and distinctly intimated His design to " add no 
more j " — and that the faith of the Church should ever answer to 
its divine Archetypes, " as, in water, face answereth to face ;" 
— those, who believe that the Church's progress and develop- 
ment should be from grace to grace, and from faith to faith, — 
not in the sense of changing one grace for another, or an old 
system of faith for a new, but — in the sense of carrying every 
grace to its highest attainable perfection, and of developing, 
from the one faith of the ancient Bible, its richest fruits in the 
holy civilization of the Individual and of Society ; — those, 
who hold that we should seek, — not for repeated changes of 
faith and doctrine, but — for a better practical, as well as intel- 
lectual apprehension of the Immutable Faith and Doctrine of 
God's holy Word ; those, who regard the Church — not as a 
subject, upon which this World's spirit of curiosity and love of 
novelty may make their experiments, but — as God's Instrument 
for operating on the world in the blessed work of reclaiming 
it, for a just allegiance, to its Eternal King: those, who thus 
believe and hold, will, I apprehend, feel a peculiar force in 
the view which I have taken, and realize its great weight in 
deciding the question upon the comparative value of the two 
great forms of public Worship in the Church. The scriptural 
and edifying character of a Liturgy being secured — nothing 
further is essentially needed, — save a faithful preaching of 
" Jesus Christ and him crucified," and the full effusion, prom- 
ised to such preaching, of the mighty power of the Holy Ghost \ 



204 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

to bring into the Church, and to perpetuate her highest life 
and her holiest efficiency : a life, serene as it would be endur- 
ing ; — an efficiency, blessed as it would be powerful. 

And now, in dismissing the topics, with which I have thought 
it not improper to follow the argument on the comprehension 
of the Church Universal, let me ask the reader to join me in 
breathing forth, humbly and fervently, at the feet of Him, who 
is, " to the Church, Head over all,"^ these brief aspirations: 
that all Christians, whether they write, or read, or whatsoever 
they do, may be lead to seek mainly for one thing ; not so 
much for an acute skill in controversy j not so much for 
triumph in debate ; not so much for victory over all, who can- 
not see things indifferent with exactly our eyes ; — as for a free 
and full in-breathing of the Life of Christ, through the power of 
the Spirit, and by the quickening of the Father's Word ; — and 
that, thus, the whole " Church of the Living God" on Earth 
may the sooner be penetrated with one divine nature, though 
it should never be known, in all its parts, by one human name : 
obeying One Government, as alone infallible, the Govern- 
ment of her Divine Head ; and bowing in one worship, as alone 
acceptable to Heaven, The Worship of the Father " in 
Spirit and in Truth." 



DISCOURSE XIII. 



" The General Assembly and Church of the First-born, which are written in 
Heaven." — Heb. xii; 23. 



In this discourse, I propose no addition to the arguments, 
with which the foregoing work has been concerned. My ob- 
ject is, so far as may be, to give a holier power to what has 
been said by carrying the whole subject, which has been dis- 
cussed, up to that future and finished result, wherein all that 
is imperfect in the Church on Earth will be seen swallowed 
up forever in the perfections of the Church in Heaven. If, 
in what has thus far been written, there have been too much 
of a taint from earthly influences, it will be pleasant to the 
writer, — he hopes it may be no less so to the reader, — to 
close the book with something that shall serve to remind both 
of the purities of a better world. 

We are taught by the Apostle that there were, in the an- 
cient Church, " patterns of things in the Heavens." Some of 
those patterns are enumerated in the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
Thus, the sacrifices and sprinkling of blood, observed by the 
Church under the old Dispensation, were "patterns" of the 
one great Offering, and of the true Blood of sprinkling, which 
Christ, our great High Priest, is continually presenting in 
Heaven.* Thus, too, the Most Holy Place in the temple of 
the ancient Church was a " pattern" of the " true" Holy of 

* Heb. ix ; 24. 



206 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

Holies in Heaven, into which Christ has entered with that 
one perfect offering of Himself.* In Heaven, there is con- 
tinual worship, as we learn from the visions of him, who spake 
in the Apocalypse. The elders, who " worship Him that 
liveth forever and ever," — " rest not, day and night, saying 
Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is 
to come."f Worship on Earth, is an act of the Church. 
This worship on high, therefore, implies the existence of a 
Church in Heaven. Moreover ; he, who had the visions of the 
Apocalypse, saw in Heaven, the " Bride the Lamb's wife ;"J 
one of the mystic names, by which the Church of Christ is 
designated. 

There is, then, a Church in Heaven. It is " the General 
Assembly and Church of the First-born, whose names are 
written" there. To this " General Assembly and Church of 
the First-born" Christians do, indeed, " come" even while they 
continue on earth ; for it is while they are thus on earth, that 
their "names are written in Heaven." Still the language of 
the Apostle is most happily descriptive of the state of the 
Church on high ; and it is only in that state that our coming 
to it will be finally and fully realized. Christ " loved the 
Church, and gave Himself for it, that he might" — " present it 
to Himself, a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or 
any such thing ; but that it should be holy, and without blem- 
ish." This presentation will be literally and fully realized 
only in Heaven. The Church is, indeed, presented to Christ 
on earth ; and it is, in one sense, even here, u a glorious 
Church :" but it will never be perfectly " holy and without 
blemish" till the day, when the grand marriage of " the Bride, 
the Lamb's Wife," shall be celebrated in solemn state before 
the throne of God. 

There is a Church in Heaven. Heaven itself, considered 
as a state of being and relations, and as made up of those, who 
fill that state, is a Church. In that Church Jesus Himself is 
" The great Bishop and Shepherd of souls." Its members are 
" The First-born," — the choice ones of God, the first or best 

* Heb. ix j 8 and 12. f & ev . i* J 8 and 10. $ Rev. xxi j 9. 



THE CHURCH IN HEAVEN. 207 

fruits of His creatures ; and their " names are written in 
Heaven," in the Begistry of Life. Its Baptism is the full 
affusion of the Holy Ghost and of fire," — the spirit of glow- 
ing, heavenly love, poured abundantly upon all hearts. And 
its high Sacrament is a feast on " angels' food," the manna of 
immortality j — a feast, — not on the pledges, — but on the re- 
ality, of that as yet great mystery, — Life everlasting in 
Christ our Head. If, then, there be a Church in Heaven, we 
cannot have better employment on earth than in making our- 
selves familiar with its characteristics, and partakers of its 
spirit. To this end may a blessing be shed down upon us from 
that upper — inner Sanctuary. 

What, then, are the characteristics of the Church in 
Heaven 1 

1. It is characterized by Union. 

I say Union, rather that Unity ; because, of the two, the 
former is the higher and more perfect state. As we have seen, 
there may be Unity, where there is no Union. But, in the 
Church, taken as one whole, there can be no Union, which 
does not include Unity. Union is Unity sanctified. 

On earth, the uniting principle operates feebly, and incon- 
stantly. In Heaven it acts powerfully and constantly ; so that 
the very basis of the Church in glory is — Union: — a perfectly 
united condition of the innumerable parts, or members of 
the glorified Body. There are no Schisms in Heaven. The 
members of Christ there do not look on one another with the 
sickly eye of prejudice, till brother learns to hate his brother. 
They do not call one another by odious names there, till at 
length the very sound of some two-edged epithet, wounding 
the heart both of him, who utters, and of him, who receives 
it, stirs to action most unholy tempers. There are no rival 
Sects in Heaven, each striving to build its own, and to demo- 
lish the other's house : no dividing walls to prevent Christians 
from seeing and speaking with Christians ; no separate streams 
of charity, kept by artificial dikes from flowing into one com- 
mon channel. But love, mighty love, melts down all barriers, 
opens all hearts, and unites all minds. Love, there, is the 
true " bond of perfectness ;" a bond never broken, leaving 



208 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

not a soul out of its sacred zone, but holding all in a blest 
eternal union. There, is presented the literal fulness of that, 
for which the Savior prayed ; — " That they all may be One ; 
— as thou, Father art in me, and I in. Thee, that they also may 
be One in us." — " And the glory, which thou gavest me, I 
have given them : that they may be One even as we are One. 
I in them and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect 
in One." 

2. The Church in Heaven is also characterized by Purity. 

I use this term, now, not as synonymous with holiness in the 
children of God, but as opposed to mixture among them 
of those, who belong not to them. Heaven is a pure Church 
because it contains no false members ; no hypocrites, or in- 
tentional deceivers of others, and no formalists or careless de- 
ceivers of themselves. All, who are admitted to membership 
there, are admitted under the inspection of the All-seeing 
Eye ; an eye that looks through all outward forms, into all 
secret motives. Membership there is a vital reality. There 
are no dead branches there, whose only distinction is that 
they lie within the enclosure of the Church Vineyard. All 
are there living branches, grafted into Christ, " the True 
Vine," and growing out of Him as the real " Tree of Life." In 
Heaven, there are no "tares" among the "wheat;" for no 
enemy finds the great Husbandman asleep that he may sow 
them. The " net," which is " let down" from heaven into 
the great sea of Time, gathers not good and bad, but good 
alone upon the eternal shores. In Heaven, it is never said of 
professing Christians ; " They went out from us because they 
were not of us :" but all there are regenerate in heart, as well 
as in outward relation ; — all are baptized with the Spirit as 
well as with the water ; and all not only sit down at His table, 
but also feast on life with the living Savior. 

3. Sanctity is another characteristic of the Church in 
Heaven. 

The members of that Church are not only set apart from 
common and profane uses, but separated also from every form 
and degree of sin ; not only consecrated as vessels of honor 
unto God, but also " meet for the Master's use." They have no- 



THE CHURCH IN HEAVEN. 209 

thing wrong in their natures. They do not, it is true, feel like 
the Angels, who can look up to God, in the sweet conscious- 
ness that they have never offended Him : but they do feel like 
Redeemed ones, who can look up to their Father, with the 
joyful certainty that He has delivered them from all their 
offences and made them, once more and forever, perfect in His 
sight. They hear when it is said; "These are they which 
came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes 
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." These 
were "redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto 
God and to the Lamb. In their mouth was found no guile : 
for they are without fault before the throne of God." To 
use the Apostle's phrase ; " In the body of His flesh, through 
death," Christ hath finally "presented" them to the Father 
" holy and unblamable, and unreprovable in His sight " 

4. Another characteristic of the Church in Heaven is — 
Light. 

I speak not of the light, which visits these poor, feeble eyes 
of flesh ; but of the true light the shining of truth, the light of 
the soul. In Heaven there is no Error, nor any to teach error, 
concerning either God or His ways, either man or his destiny. 
There is no ignorance there, as growing out of the disuse of the 
faculties of the mind ; nor any mistake, as originating in that 
feebleness, which cannot always use those faculties aright. 
All these forms of darkness are dispersed, " and the true 
light shineth." Heaven is full of truth, of knowledge, and 
of certainty. There are no Heresies in that Church. Nor 
is there any " seeing through a glass darkly ;" all is " face to 
face :" no "knowing but in part ;" all "know even as they 
also are known." Truth, in Heaven, is like a great sea ; 
fathomless indeed and shoreless, but transparent throughout ; — 
and the Christian there is like one, who, from the shore of some 
beautiful isle, looks down into the clear depths, 'as they re- 
veal to him all their wonders, and who rejoices that there are no 
limits to his discoveries but those, which lie in the very bound- 
lessness of the transparency. This seems to be the mystery, 
which John saw in the Revelations, when the Heavenly City ap- . 
peared to him as " pure gold, like unto clear glass ;" it was the 



210 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

gold of simple Truth, translucid to the eye of the spiritual 
man. A similar mystery came before his eye, when he saw 
beneath the light of the seven mystic lamps burning " before 
the throne, — a sea of glass, like unto crystal; and in the midst 
of the throne and round about the throne, — four living crea- 
tures full of eyes :"* it was the transparent sea of Truth, 
spread out beneath the light of God's all-illuminating Spirit, 
into whose clear depths the eyes of the holy ones are ever look- 
ing to wonder and adore. 

5. Separateness is likewise characteristic of the Church in 
Heaven. 

Here, even true Christians are more or less conformed to 
the world in their tastes, habits, and intercourse. There, even 
the spirit of such conformity disappears. In Heaven, the 
Church is separate from the world, — not because walls of 
adamant and gates of brass, have been built between them ; 
nor because measureless space has been interposed to prevent 
their association ; — but because the desire to associate is un- 
felt. Moral differences there are seen in the light, which re- 
veals all things \ and being seen, are felt j and the seen and 
felt difference between the holy and the unholy, this is the 
wall, which separates their destinies. This constitutes the im- 
measurable distance, which is interposed between their eternal 
abodes. The voice of God, which separates the wicked from 
the righteous, is not a sound made in the ear of sense, but a 
conviction uttered into the heart of conscience. His segrega- 
ting power is the light of His truth, shining up and showing 
all things just as they are ; and, with its revealings, sending 
home into the souls of the holy and the unholy a conscious- 
ness of eternal dissimilitude. No where, but in the world of 
spirits, is that great truth, which Jesus taught, felt in its full 
power ; — " Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither 
cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But, 
he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be 
made manifest that they are wrought in God."f 

6. Social Fellowship is still further characteristic of the 
Church in Heaven. 

* Rev. xv ; 2,— iv ; 6. f John iii ; 20, 21 , 



THE CHURCH IN HEAVEN 211 

The members of that Church have "fellowship with the 
Father and with His Son Jesus Christ," as well as with one 
another. " The Church of the First-born, whose names are 
Written in Heaven," is also called, " The General Assembly." 
It is a company, and exhibits the perfection of social life. 
It admits of no dissocial grades. Diversities of rank, office, 
and station may exist there ; but if they do, they excite no 
separating feeling ; they oppose no bars to freedom and cordi* 
ality of intercourse. There are no artificial restraints, or for- 
malities, or coldnesses, in the society of the " Saints in light." 
The loftiest spirit there feels no embarrassment in holding 
open fellowship with the lowliest servant of the Savior; but 
delights to sit in sacred converse and communion with him at 
the feet of Jesus. Among the members of the Church in 
Heaven, there are no rivalries, no jealousies, no clashing inter- 
ests, no great families to be built up and enclosed and kept 
distinct from the poor, the obscure, the unknown. Nothing 
among them represses the indulgence of mutual sympathies. 
They are, as Jesus requires, "like little children;" and, like 
little children, they act just as they feel, and feel just as they 
act. Earthly titles, earthly wealth, and earthly prejudices, 
are left down in the grave, side by side with the obscurity, the 
indigence, and the depression of the once suffering children of 
God ; and the worshipers in the Heavenly Sanctuary, the 
guests at the sacrament above, having laid aside these their 
incumbrances, and dropped all (heir badges of outward dis- 
tinction, stand lip together in a nobler fellowship than this 
earth knows, — the fellowship of "the spirits of just men made 
■perfect" 

7. Thus variously characterized, the Church in Heaven is, 
still further glorious. There is a glory in its rest, in its 
joy, and in its action. 

In its rest, there is glory. No sorrow, no suffering, no 
tears, no death, darken its radiance. Its repose is the calm, 
which surrounds the moveless throne of God ; a living calm, 
a repose fearless of interruption. 

In its joy, also, there is glory : — a beaming of " the fulness of 
God " upon the sanctuary of His chosen. The joy of the 



212 THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. 

Church in Heaven is the sunlight of eternal holiness and eter- 
nal happiness, shining through the souls that worship there. It 
is the everlasting light of God's love in their hearts. 

And in the action of the Church in Heaven, there is glory: — 
the strength, the harmony, the intelligence, of a perfect Body, 
governed by one perfect Head, moved by one perfect will, 
and tending to one infinite good. The members of that Body, 
are unfainting spirits. " They rest not, day and night," in 
their divine employ. No clogs of sense, no burthen of the 
flesh, no dull, and earthly, and weary affections weigh them 
down. In their worship they never flag : in their search for 
knowledge they never tire : and in their labor of love they 
never grow heartless. Energies worthy of the Redeemed are 
alive there. Whether they sing the song of those, who, have 
been saved ; or study adoringly into the wonders of the Divine 
character and of His plan of Redemption ; or wander, discursive, 
amidst His boundless works ; or trace the streams of knowledge 
up to their fountains in the eternal hills ; — whether they do 
one, or the other, or all, of these things, they alike put forth 
the activities of free and noble, sinless and mighty spirits. 
Their activities are all-glorious ! 

8. The Church in Heaven, finally, is past all disastrous 
vicissitude. It wades not through the blood and fires of suc- 
cessive Pagan persecutions. It passes through no night of Dark 
Ages. It whets no sword, prepares no torture, and contrives 
no death, for those servants of God, who refuse to bow their 
necks to the yoke of error. It quakes amidst the throes of no 
violent Reformation. It languishes not amidst returning slum- 
ber, declension, and decay. It dips no pen in the gall of con- 
troversy, to stir up strife and teach brethren how to hate. It 
wars not against the Word of God. It cloaks no infidelity and 
no sensuality under the forms of combrous and unmeaning 
ceremonies. But, past all disastrous change, purified from all 
defiling mixtures, and made perfect by the discipline of ages, 
it is at rest on its immovable foundation, a Spiritual Church, 
full of God, of His light, His love, and His praise. 

Such is Heaven, considered as a Church. Is not " the King's 
daughter there, all glorious within 1 " Is not " her clothing of 



THE CHURCH IN HEAVEN. 213 

wrought gold 1 " In describing her, I have not dealt in vain 
imaginations. The gold, with which I have shown her vesture 
to be wrought, has been dug from the mines of inspired truth ; 
of truth, inspired by Him, to whom all things in Heaven and 
on Earth, are visible. The characteristics of the glorified 
Church above, are all characteristics of the True Church below ; 
— only they are but imperfectly manifested in the present 
world. Their perfection is seen nowhere but in the world, 
where God appears unveiled to the eye of His " saints in light." 

If, then, it may be supposed, that any of the readers of this 
book have heretofore been thoughtless and careless of their 
souls, I would ask them a parting question ; — Will you go and 
join that "glorious Church," — that Church "without spot or 
wrinkle," that Church which is " holy and without blemish 1 " 
If you hope to live in Heaven, you must be willing, you must 
be fit, to become members of the Church in Heaven. But, 
how is this 1 You hesitate. You are not ready to join even 
the Church on Earth. You do not feel prepared, or fit for fel- 
lowship with the saints in this their comparatively imperfect 
state. How, then, can you go and join that perfect, that glo- 
rious Church above 1 Would to God you were ready for 
membership here, sincere, believing, and affectionate member- 
ship, with the true, though as yet but partially sanctified dis- 
ciples of Christ. On such a readiness God would smile, and 
ripen it into a perfect preparation for what awaits His own in 
Heaven. 

But, the subject, thus carried up to its final issues, respects 
specially those, who are already members of the Church on 
Earth ; and the principal thought, which it should keep alive 
in their consideration, is this. 

The members of the Church on Earth ought to regulate their 
whole course of life, association, habit, and feeling with reference 
to future membership in the Church in Heaven. . The true Church 
here is more than a type of the glorified Church there. This 
Earthly is more than a "pattern" of that Heavenly thing. They 
are parts of one and the same Communion and Fellowship. 
The Earthly is preparatory to the Heavenly. The one is a 



214 THE CHUKCH UNIVERSAL. 

school for education and discipline ; the other is an endless' 
life for action and for enjoyment. The one is the Porch ; the 
other, the Great Temple itself. The one is youth, tender, im- 
pressible youth ; the other manhood, firm, vigorous manhood. 
If then, the child should' carefully train and fashion himself for" 
the duties and the destiny of the man, so should the Christian 
on Earth regulate his whole course of life, association, habit 
and feeling, with strict reference to his future standing as a 
member of the Church in Heaven. He should do every thing 
here, which he would approve there ■; and nothing here, which 
he would there condemn. Imperfect light and knowledge here* 
may keep him from always seeing what he would there either 
approve, or condemn; and the feebleness of nature may some-* 
times render him unable to do, or to avoid, what he knows he 
ought to do, or to ! avoid. But, so far as he sees, or can be made 
to see, what would be either approved or condemned in 
Heaven, and so far as he has, or can obtain, strength either to- 
do, or to ; avoid dbing it ; — he should- scrupulously regulate the 
present with reference to the future. He should habitually 
live as though his next communion were to be made in " the 
Church of the First-born," and at the table in Heaven. 

And yet, how few ever think of making this the rule of 
their present Christian life. How few regulate their inter- 
course with the world by this rule. How few, by this, regulate 
even their intercourse with their fellow Christians. How few 
think of this either in their business, or in their devotions ; and 
how few practice according to it, in either their pleasures, or 
their charities. 

The cases, in which these suggestions will apply themselves, 
can be known only, or may be known best, by each individual 
member in the Church of Christ. This book, however, must 
not have its close, without an expression of the deep and sol- 
emn conviction, that, if there can be tears in that world,- 
where " all tears are wiped away from all faces," Christians 
will shed them, when they come to look down from their seats 1 
on high upon the courses in life which they have been pursu- 
ing- — upon the present state of their associations,, their habits,,- 



THE CHURCH IN HEAVEN. 215 

and their feelings ; — so full of conformity with the world, so 
dull, so languid, so selfish, so slow to good, so little like what 
they ought to be, who profess to believe that " their names 

ARE WRITTEN IN HEAVEN." 

Let us listen, then, to the voice which is sounding in our 
ears : " Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and 
Christ shall give thee light:" and as we hear, let us rouse our- 
selves, gird up the loins of our mind, and henceforth live like 
men, who do indeed "wait for their Lord-" 



THE END. 



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